Lover or Friend Part 13

'I am going to see them to-morrow. I know what that inquiry means, Michael. You think that I am always so much taken up with new people that I forget my old friends; but you are wrong.' And then she added, a little reproachfully: 'That you of all people should accuse me of fickleness!'

Captain Burnett smiled a little gravely.

'You are investing my words with too large a meaning. I do not think you in the least fickle; it is only your headlong sympathies that carry you away.' But as Audrey looked a little mystified over this speech, he continued: 'I would not have you neglect Mr. O'Brien for the world. I only wish Vineyard Cottage were a mile or two nearer, and I would often smoke a pipe in that earwiggy bower of his. I have a profound respect for Thomas...o...b..ien. I love a man who lives up to his profession, and is not above his business. A retired tradesman who tries to forget he was ever behind the counter, and who goes through life aping the manners of gentlefolk, is a poor sort of body in my eyes; he is neither fish, fowl, nor good red herring. Now Mr. O'Brien is as proud of being a corn-chandler as'--he paused for a simile--'as our drummer-boy was of belonging to the British army.'

'Poor old man! he has seen a peck of trouble, as he calls it.'

'There, you see,' interrupting her delightedly, 'his very language borrows its most powerful imagery from his past belongings! Do you or I, Audrey, in our wildest and most despairing moments, ever talk of a peck of trouble? Depend upon it, my dear, when Thomas made that speech, he was among his bins again; in his mind's eye he was measuring out his oats and beans. I think I hear him repeating again what he once said to me: "It is such a clean, wholesome business, Captain. I often dream I am back in the shop again, with my wife laying the tea in the back-parlour.

I can feel the grain slithering between my fingers, and even the dropping of the peas on the counter out of the overfilled bags is as plain as possible. Mat always did his work so awkwardly."'

'I don't think he has ever got over the loss of his wife, Michael.'

'Of course not. Is he likely to do so, with Mrs. Baxter's lugubrious countenance opposite him morning, noon, and night? I don't wonder her husband ran away from her; it would take a deal of principle to put up with such a trying woman.'

'Michael, I will not have you so severe on my friends! Mrs. Baxter is a very good woman, and she takes great care of her father. We cannot all be gifted with good spirits. Poor Priscilla Baxter is a disappointed woman.'

Michael shrugged his shoulders, but he was spared making any reply, as just then they encountered Geraldine and her husband. They were evidently looking for Audrey.

'Are you going, Gage?' observed Audrey serenely. 'I was just coming up to the house to wish you good-bye, only Michael detained me.'

'I thought you were with Mr. Blake,' returned her sister, in a puzzled tone. 'I wish you would come up to luncheon to-morrow--I have scarcely spoken two words to you this afternoon. Edith is coming.'

'It will be a pity to interrupt your _tete-a-tete_,' returned Audrey pleasantly; 'Mrs. Bryce has always so much to say, and she comes so seldom.' And, as her sister's face clouded, she continued: 'I will run up for an hour on Wednesday, but I really cannot neglect Mr. O'Brien any longer--he will have been looking for me day after day.'

'Oh, if you are going to Vineyard Cottage,' in a mollified tone that Audrey perfectly understood, 'you will have tea there, of course.'

'Do you think Mrs. Baxter would let me come away without my tea?'

returned Audrey quickly.

She was inwardly somewhat annoyed at this questioning. She had meant to go to the Gray Cottage on her way; but now she must give that up: Mollie must watch for her a little longer. Perhaps she could go to Hillside in the morning and keep her afternoon free. And as she came to this conclusion, she bade her sister an affectionate good-bye. But as Geraldine took her husband's arm in the steep shrubbery walk, she said, in a dissatisfied tone:

'I am glad we found her with Michael; but, all the same, she and Mr.

Blake were partners all the afternoon.'

'My dear Geraldine,' returned Mr. Harcourt with a.s.sumed solemnity, 'I think Audrey may be trusted to manage her own little affairs--she is two-and-twenty, is she not? When you have daughters of your own, my love, I am quite sure you will manage them excellently, and no young man will have a chance of speaking to them; but with Audrey it is another matter.' And then, in a tragic undertone: 'Have you forgotten, wife mine, a certain afternoon when you did me the honour of playing with me three whole sets, and then we cooled ourselves down by the lake, until your father hunted us out?'

Geraldine pressed her husband's arm gently; she remembered that afternoon well, and all Percival had said to her--they had just come to an understanding when her father interrupted them. For one moment her face softened at the sweet remembrance, and then she roused herself to remonstrate.

'But, Percy dear, this is utterly different. Audrey would never dream of falling in love with Mr. Blake. Fancy a girl in her position encouraging the attentions of a junior master. No, indeed; I was only afraid of a little flirtation. Of course Audrey declares she never flirts, but she has such a way with her--she is too kind in her manner sometimes.'

'It is to be hoped that she will not break as many hearts as a certain young person I know--eh, Jerry?' and Geraldine blushed and held her peace.

She never liked to be reminded of the unlucky wooers who had shaken off the dust of Woodcote so sorrowfully. As for Mr. Harcourt, he delighted in these proofs of conquests. Geraldine had not been easy to win--she had given her lover plenty of trouble; but she was his now, and, as he often told himself, no man had ever been more fortunate in his choice.

For Mr. Harcourt, in spite of his delight in teasing, was very deeply in love with his beautiful wife.

CHAPTER IX

MAT

'Sympathy or no sympathy, a man's love should no more fail towards his fellows than that love which spent itself on disciples who altogether misunderstood it, like the rain which falls on just and unjust alike.'--MARK RUTHERFORD.

Vineyard Cottage, where the retired corn-chandler had elected to spend the remnant of his days, was no pretentious stucco villa; it was a real old-fashioned cottage, with a big roomy porch well covered with honeysuckle and sweet yellow jasmine, and a sitting-room on either side of the door, with one small-paned window, which was certainly not filled with plate-gla.s.s. It was a snug, bowery little place, and the fresh dimity curtains at the upper windows, and the stand of blossoming plants in the little pa.s.sage, gave it a cheerful and inviting aspect. The tiny lawn was smooth as velvet, and a row of tall white lilies, flanked with fragrant lavender, filled up the one narrow bed that ran by the side of the privet hedge.

As Audrey unlatched the little gate she had a glimpse of Mr. O'Brien in his shirt-sleeves. He was smoking in the porch, and so busily engaged in reading his paper that Audrey's light tread failed to arouse him, until a plaintive and fretful voice from within made him turn his head.

'Father, aren't you ashamed to be sitting there in your shirt-sleeves when Miss Ross has come to call? And it is 'most four o'clock, too--pretty near about tea-time.'

'Miss Ross--you don't say so, Prissy!' returned Mr. O'Brien, thrusting an arm hastily into the coat that his daughter was holding out in an aggressively reproachful manner. 'How do you do, Miss Ross? Wait a moment--wait a moment, until I can shake hands with you. Now, then, the other arm, Prissy. You are as welcome as flowers in May--and as blooming too, isn't she, Prissy?' and Mr. O'Brien enforced his compliment with a grasp of the hand that made Audrey wince.

'I expected a scolding--I did indeed,' laughed Audrey, 'instead of this very kind welcome. It is so long since my last visit; is it not, Mr.

O'Brien?'

'Well, ma'am, tell the truth and shame the devil; that's my motto. I'll not deny that Prissy and I were wondering at your absence. "What's become of Miss Ross?" she said to me only to-day at dinner, "for she has not been near us for an age."'

'And I was right, father, and it is an age since Miss Ross honoured us with a visit,' replied his daughter in the plaintive tone that seemed natural to her. 'It was just five weeks ago, for Susan Larkins had come up about the bit of washing her mother wished to have, so I remember the day well.'

'Five weeks!' responded Audrey with a shake of her head; 'what a memory you have, Mrs. Baxter, and, dear me, how ill you are looking; is there anything the matter?' looking from one to the other with kindly scrutiny.

Mr. O'Brien and his daughter were complete contrasts to each other. He was a stout, gray-haired man with a pleasant, genial countenance, though it was not without its lines of care. Mrs. Baxter, on the contrary, had a long melancholy face and anxious blue eyes. Her black gown clung to her thin figure in limp folds; her features were not bad, and a little liveliness and expression would have made her a good-looking woman; but her dejected air and want of colouring detracted from her comeliness, and of late years her voice had grown peevish as well as plaintive, as though her troubles had been too heavy for her. Audrey had a sincere respect for her; but she certainly wished that Mrs. Baxter took a less lugubrious view of life. At times she would try to infuse a little of her own cheerfulness; but she soon found that Mrs. Baxter was too closely wrapped in her melancholy. In her own language, she preferred the house of mourning to the house of feasting.

'Oh, I hope there is nothing fresh the matter!' repeated Audrey, whose clear-sighted sympathy was never at fault.

She thought that Mr. O'Brien's genial face looked a shade graver than usual.

'Come and sit down, Miss Ross, and I will be hurrying the girl with the tea,' observed Mrs. Baxter mournfully, for she was never too lachrymose to be hospitable, and though she shed tears on slight occasions, she was always disposed to press her hot b.u.t.tered cakes on her guests, and any refusal to taste her good cheer would have grievously wounded her bruised sensibilities. 'Father, take Miss Ross into the best parlour while I help Hannah a bit.'

And as Mr. O'Brien laid aside his pipe and led the way into the house, Audrey followed him, nothing loath.

'Joe's been troubling Priscilla again,' he observed, as Audrey seated herself on the little horsehair sofa beside the open window, and Buff, a great tortoise-sh.e.l.l cat, jumped uninvited on her lap and began purring loudly.

'Joe!' repeated Audrey in a shocked voice; she knew very well who was meant. Joe was the ne'er-do-well of a son-in-law whose iniquities had transformed the young and comely Priscilla into the meagre and colourless Mrs. Baxter. 'He has no right to trouble her!' she went on indignantly.

'He has been worrying for money again,' returned Mr. O'Brien, ruffling up his gray hair in a discontented fashion; 'he says he is hard up. But that is only one of Joe's lies; he tells lies by the peck. He had a good coat on, and looked as thriving as possible, and I know from Atkinson, who has been in Leeds, that he is a traveller to some house in the wine trade. And yet he comes here, the bullying rascal! fretting the poor la.s.s to skin and bone with pretending he can take the law of her for not living with him, and that after all his ill-usage.'

'I am so sorry,' returned Audrey, and her tone said more than her words.

'He is a bad man, a thoroughly heartless and bad man--everyone knows that; and she must never go back to him. I hope you told him so.'

'Ay, I did,' with a touch of gruffness; 'I found him bullying, and poor Prissy crying her eyes out, and looking ready to drop--for she is afraid of him--and I just took down my big stick. "Joe," I said, as he began bl.u.s.tering about her being his true and lawful wife, "you just drop that and listen to me: if she is your wife, she is my daughter, our only one--for never chick nor child had we beside Priscilla--and she is going to stop along with me, law or no law."

'"I'll claim my own. There's two to that bargain, father-in-law," he says, with a sneer; for, you see, he was turning a bit nasty.

'"And you'll claim something else as well, son-in-law!" I replied, getting a good grip of the stick; for my blood was up, and I would have felled him to the ground with all the pleasure in life, only the girl got between us.

'"No, father--no violence!" she screeches out. "Don't make things worse for poor, unhappy me. Joe is not worth your getting into trouble on his account. Go along with you, Joe, and Heaven forgive you; but horses wouldn't drag me under your roof again after the way you have treated me."