Patricia Brent, Spinster Part 40

"You ain't lookin' well, me dear," he said with conviction.

"That's a sure way to a woman's heart," replied Patricia gaily.

"'Ow's that, me dear?" he questioned.

"Why, telling her that she's looking plain," retorted Patricia.

Mr. Triggs protested.

"All I want is a holiday," went on Patricia. "There are only three weeks to wait and then----"

There was, however, no joy of antic.i.p.ation in her voice.

"You're frettin'!"

Patricia turned angrily upon Mr. Triggs.

"Fretting! What on earth do you mean, Mr. Triggs?" she demanded.

Mr. Triggs sat down suddenly, overwhelmed by Patricia's indignation.

"Don't be cross with me, me dear." Mr. Triggs looked so like a child fearing rebuke that she was forced to smile.

"You must not say absurd things then," she retorted. "What have I got to fret about?"

Mr. Triggs quailed beneath her challenging glance. "I--I'm sorry, me dear," he said contritely.

"Don't be sorry, Mr. Triggs," said Patricia severely; "be accurate."

"I'm sorry, me dear," repeated Mr. Triggs.

"But that doesn't answer my question," Patricia persisted. "What have I to fret about?"

Mr. Triggs mopped his brow vigorously. He invariably expressed his emotions with his handkerchief. He used it strategically, tactically, defensively, continuously. It was to him what the lines of Torres Vedras were to Wellington. He retired behind its sheltering folds, to emerge a moment later, his forces reorganised and re-arrayed. When at a loss what to say or do, it was his handkerchief upon which he fell back; if he required time in which to think, he did it behind its ample and protecting folds.

"You see, me dear," said Mr. Triggs at length, avoiding Patricia's relentless gaze, as he proceeded to stuff away the handkerchief in his tail pocket. "You see, me dear----" Again he paused. "You see, me dear," he began for a third time, "I thought you was frettin' over your work or something, when you ought to be enjoyin' yourself," he lied.

Patricia looked at him, her conscience smiting her. She smiled involuntarily.

"I never fret about anything except when you don't come to see me," she said gaily.

Mr. Triggs beamed with good-humour, his fears now quite dispelled.

"You're run down, me dear," he said with decision. "You want an 'oliday. I must speak to A. B. about it."

"If you do I shall be very angry," said Patricia; "Mr. Bonsor is always very kind and considerate."

"It--it isn't----" began Mr. Triggs, then paused.

"It isn't what?" Patricia smiled at his look of concern.

"If--if it is," began Mr. Triggs. Again he paused, then added with a gulp, "Couldn't I lend you some?"

For a moment Patricia failed to follow the drift of his remark, then when she appreciated that he was offering to lend her money she flushed. For a moment she did not reply, then seeing the anxiety stamped upon his kindly face, she said with great deliberation:

"I think you must be quite the nicest man in all the world. If ever I decide to borrow money I'll come to you first."

Mr. Triggs blushed like a schoolboy. He had fully antic.i.p.ated being snubbed. He had found from experience that Patricia had of late become very uncertain in her moods.

They were interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Bonsor.

"'Ere, A. B.!" cried Mr. Triggs. "What do you mean by it?"

"Mean by what?" enquired Mr. Bonsor, busy with an imaginary speech upon street noises, suggested by a barrel-piano in the distance.

"You're working 'er too 'ard, A. B.," said Mr. Triggs with conviction.

"Working who too hard?" Mr. Bonsor looked helplessly at Patricia. He was always at a disadvantage with his father-in-law, whose bluntness of speech seemed to demoralise him.

"Mr. Triggs thinks that you are slowly killing me," laughed Patricia.

Mr. Bonsor looked uncertainly at Patricia, and Mr. Triggs gazed at Mr.

Bonsor. He had no very high opinion of his daughter's husband.

"Well, mind you don't overwork 'er," said Mr. Triggs as he rose to go.

A few minutes later Patricia was deep in the absorbing subject of the life history of the potato-beetle.

"Ugh!" she cried as the clock in the hall chimed five. "I hate beetles, and," she paused a moment to tuck away a stray strand of hair, "I never want to see a potato as long as I live."

That evening when she reached Galvin House she went to her room, and there subjected herself to a searching examination in the looking-gla.s.s, she was forced to confess to the paleness of her face and dark marks beneath her eyes. She explained them by summer in London, coupled with the dreariness of Arthur Bonsor, M.P., and his mania for statistics.

"You're human yeast, Patricia!" she murmured to her reflection; "at least you're paid two-and-a-half guineas a week to try to leaven the unleavenable, and you mustn't complain if sometimes you get a little tired. Fretting!" There was indignation in her voice. "What have you got to fret about?"

With the pa.s.sage of each day, however, she grew more listless and weary. She came to dread meal-times, with their irritating chatter and uninspiring array of faces that she had come almost to dislike. She was conscious of whisperings and significant looks among her fellow-boarders. She resented even Gustave's cow-like gaze of sympathetic anxiety as she declined the food he offered her.

Lady Tanagra and Mr. Triggs never asked her out. Everybody seemed suddenly to have deserted her. Sometimes she would catch a glimpse of them in the Park on Sunday morning Once she saw Bowen; but he did not see her. "The daily round and common task" took on a new and sinister meaning for her. Sometimes her thoughts would travel on a few years into the future. What did it hold for her? Instinctively she shuddered at the loneliness of it all.

One afternoon on her return to Galvin House, Gustave opened the door.

He had evidently been on the watch. His kindly face was beaming with goodwill.

"Oh, mees!" he cried. "Mees Brent is here."

"Aunt Adelaide!" cried Patricia, her heart sinking. Then seeing the comical lock of indecision upon Gustave's face caused by her despairing exclamation she laughed.

When she entered the lounge, it was to find Miss Brent sitting upright upon the stiffest chair in the middle of the room. Miss w.a.n.gle and Mrs. Mosscrop-Smythe were seated together in the extreme corner, Mrs.

Barnes and two or three others were grouped by the window. The atmosphere was tense. Something had apparently happened. Patricia learned that from the grim set of Miss Brent's mouth.

"I want to talk to you, Patricia," Miss Brent announced after the customary greeting.