Peter and Jane Part 19

'I wish,' he said to Ross that evening as they sat together in the corridor, 'that I had any one else to help me in this affair except Purvis.'

Ross knew the whole story, and was as trustworthy and straightforward a man as ever breathed. 'I wish you had,' he said cordially; 'but in his own creepy fashion I believe Purvis is working for you as well as he can, and he has an extraordinary knowledge of this country and its language. You see, it is not as if you were looking for your brother amongst the most respectable English colonists in the land. You may have to hunt for him in some remarkably queer places, and it is there, it strikes me, that Purvis will help you.'

'I wish the thing were settled one way or another,' said Peter, 'so that I might know where I stand. You see, if my brother is alive---- Well?'

'Nothing, only I thought I heard something moving outside the wire-netting, and I hate the way Purvis creeps about.'

'Purvis is putting his little boy to bed and hearing him say his prayers,' said Toffy. 'He is a queer mixture.'

Rosa rose, and walking to the edge of the corridor peered out into the pitch-black night.

'It 's so dark,' he said, 'I cannot see a thing.'

'Never mind,' said Peter, 'there are no wild beasts to spring at you unawares. Do you remember poor Cranley, who was in Pitt's house at Eton? Did you ever hear how he was killed in his veranda in India by a tiger?'

'Yes,' said Ross absently, 'awfully sad thing. Do you know, Peter, I believe I must walk round to the other side of the house and see if that chap is really putting his child to bed.'

CHAPTER XIII

So much has been said and so much has been written on the subject of the man who works and the woman who weeps, the man who fares forth and the woman who waits at home, that it hardly seems necessary to begin a chapter with another dissertation upon this theme. Lovers are proverbially discontented in the adverse conditions of separation.

Peter Ogilvie would have given much to be at home in the winter following his mother's death, and there is no doubt that Jane Erskine felt that things would have been many times easier away from home. But if these two persons had exchanged places their sentiments would doubtless have been exchanged also, thus proving what a difficult cla.s.s of beings lovers are, and how impossible it is to satisfy or to console them.

Coming as it did in the middle of a long dull winter the change to Culversham was received by Jane with whole-hearted joy. Miss Abingdon's large staff of servants, all elderly and all over-paid, combined with their mistress to welcome Miss Erskine back. The familiar rooms had never looked more pleasant than on this bleak December afternoon. A big tea-table was set by the fire, and the ma.s.sive silver upon it winked delightedly at the newly arrived guest.

The fire (Miss Abingdon was famous for her good fires) roared joyfully up the chimney; the dogs knew Jane's voice long before she was out of the carriage, and proceeded to give an almost hysterical demonstration of their affection. And Miss Abingdon, whom emotion always made more than usually severe, snubbed her maid and scolded the butler, and, sitting down by the fire while Jane poured out tea, entered into so long and minute an account of the gardener's shortcomings that it would seem as though her niece had come from London for no other reason than to hear the recital of her wrongs.

'You must go to bed early,' said Miss Abingdon when she and Jane went to dress for dinner; and she kept her up talking until long after twelve o'clock. Mrs. Avory was established in a charming little cottage almost at the gate of the Vicarage, and was a sort of senior curate to Canon Wrottesley. Mrs. Avory, Miss Abingdon said, was really able to appreciate the canon, and in going so far the lady probably meant that Mrs. Avory wholly admired and perhaps came very near to accepting as her Pope the good-looking vicar. Mr. Lawrence was being most attentive and useful, as he always was, and had chosen a new tea-service for Miss Abingdon the last time he was in town--his taste was perfect in such matters. He had even arranged to have her baths painted with a special sort of white enamel, and Miss Abingdon could only hope the world would not censure her for confiding these intimate domestic details to a gentleman. Mrs. Wrottesley was still very far from well; her illness seemed to have brought out--so Miss Abingdon said--all the n.o.bility of Canon Wrottesley's character. But--in justice, Miss Abingdon ought to say--Mrs. Wrottesley had been equally self-forgetful, and had insisted on her husband's going into society a little. He was coming to them--according to old-established custom--to dinner on Christmas Day, and Miss Sherard was coming down for the week, and whom else would Jane like to ask for Christmas?

Miss Abingdon was a staunch upholder of familiar customs. There was a certain ritual to be observed during Christmas week, and Miss Abingdon observed it. She gave handsome presents to her household on Christmas morning, and she always wept in church on Christmas Day, out of respect to the memory of an elder sister who had died many years ago, and whom as a matter of fact Miss Abingdon had never known very intimately, for she had married and left home when Mary Abingdon was but a child. She gave tips to bell-ringers and carol-singers, and entertained Sunday-school children and 'mothers' in the laundry. These anniversaries, she was wont to remark conscientiously, mitigating the enjoyment of placing handsome presents beside her guests' breakfast plates--these anniversaries were full of sadness. And having suffered fewer bereavements than commonly fall to the lot of most women of her age, she dutifully thought of her elder sister, whom she vaguely remembered as an occasional guest at her father's house, and she could not have enjoyed a Christmas Day sermon in which there was not an allusion to empty chairs.

After morning service Miss Abingdon walked to the Vicarage and bestowed her yearly gifts upon the Wrottesley family. It was a matter of conscience with her to give a present of exactly the same value to Mrs.

Wrottesley as to the canon, and this year she offered her little gifts with a good deal of compunction, remembering how difficult she had often found it to be quite fair in the distribution. For Mrs.

Wrottesley was failing in health, and in her own plain, unostentatious way she had made up her mind that her time for quitting this world was not very far off. She wrote her will with scrupulous exactness and justness, and having done so she made no allusion whatever to what must have been occupying her thoughts to the exclusion of everything else, but continued to live the life in which care for herself had always been conspicuously absent.

She received Miss Abingdon and Jane on Christmas Day in her pleasant drawing-room which the wintry sunshine was flooding with warmth and joyousness, and she tendered her thanks for the presents which had been brought for her, a.s.sured her inquirers that she was very much better in health, and said that she had ordered no dinner at home, so that her husband and boys might be forced to accept Miss Abingdon's customary hospitality. Canon Wrottesley received his wife's statement as to the improvement of her health with ingenuous pleasure. He believed that she was really looking better, twitted her kindly on her pale cheeks, and with the optimism which declines to harbour fears and apprehensions he refused to believe that she was seriously ill. The canon himself had had a bad cold lately, and his evident wish to believe that his own malady was as serious as Mrs. Wrottesley's had something pathetic in it. If he could get rid of a heavy cold and feel quite himself by Christmas Day, his wife surely would pick up in health as soon as the warm weather should come. He believed he was doing right in making light of her ailments, and Mrs. Wrottesley saw all this quite plainly, and loved him none the less for it.

'How is your cold?' said Miss Abingdon, with sympathy in her voice, and the vicar threw back his handsome head and tapped his throat, which he said was a bit husky still, although it was no use giving way to illness. 'Master your health,' he said in a tone of muscular Christianity, 'and it won't master you--eh, mamma?' he added, with an encouraging glance at his wife's pale face on the sofa.

The Vicar of Wakefield, and even Mr. Pickwick himself, had never been more jovial at a Christmas party than were Miss Abingdon's guests. A silver bowl in the middle of the table suggested punch; Canon Wrottesley must brew a wa.s.sail bowl. A footman was sent for this thing and that, for lemons and boiling water--the water must boil, remember?

And too much sugar would spoil the whole thing. The vicar stirred the ingredients with an air, and poured from time to time a spoonful of the punch into a wine-gla.s.s, and sampled its quality by rolling it in his mouth and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his eyes.

The wa.s.sail bowl being now mixed to his satisfaction, he filled the gla.s.ses of the company, allotting to each lady the thimbleful which he believed to be a woman's share of any alcoholic beverage, and extracting compliments from every one. The wa.s.sail bowl was a triumph, and the candle of Mr. Pickwick was put out. Even d.i.c.kens' hero could not have given such an air of jollity to a festive occasion like this.

He toasted every one in the good old-fashioned custom, requesting 'A gla.s.s of wine with you' on this side and on that. After dinner the presence of Dorothy Avory furnished the pretext for inaugurating a country dance in the hall. Canon Wrottesley pushed chairs aside and rolled rugs up, and before many minutes were over Sir Roger de Coverley was in full swing, and he was footing it with the indomitable energy of the man whose feet may be heavy but whose heart is aye young.

Miss Abingdon in grey satin was the vicar's partner, and attempted to go through the steps in the minuet style; the young Wrottesleys, on the other hand, were at an age when to be asked to dance Sir Roger de Coverley can only be construed as deadly insult. Fortunately for them, the vicar by some strategical movement always found himself in the enviable position of the dancer who ambles forward to make his bow.

The lady who was playing the piano at last stopped the music with a few solemn chords, faintly suggestive of an Amen, and Canon Wrottesley, who was proceeding with his fifth or sixth sally into the middle of the figure, stopped breathless. Dorothy Avory looked over-heated when the dance was finished, and as she had furnished the excuse for a rather poor attempt at romping, her obvious fatigue was quite sufficient to give the canon an opportunity of a little quiet reading until all were rested. He put on his spectacles--which he always wore with an air of apology--and gave out the t.i.tle of the story, _The Old Vicomte--A Christmas Episode_.

Doubtless the scene of the story was laid in France, but that fact hardly justified Canon Wrottesley in reading the whole of it in broken English. His knowledge of French had always been a matter of pride with him, and he enjoyed rolling out the foreign names with a perfect accent.

The number of listeners in the room had diminished considerably before the reading was finished. Good-nights were said on all sides, the Vicarage party drove away, and, the conscientious romping and jollity being over, it may have been felt by some of Miss Abingdon's guests that the duties of Christmas Day had not been altogether light, and that now perhaps enforced cheerfulness might be abandoned in favour of a more easy and natural frame of mind.

Kitty Sherard came into Jane's room in her dressing-gown, with her hair-brush in her hand, and deliberately relaxed after the fatigues of the evening. Most girls with such a profusion of curls as Kitty's would have been content to allow them to wander unrestrained over her shoulders; but Miss Sherard with her pa.s.sion for decoration would have dressed beautifully on a desert island, if her trunks had been washed ash.o.r.e with her; she had fastened a knot of rose-coloured ribbon in her hair, and wore it on one side just over her eye with an unstudied and perfectly successful effect.

'I suppose you know,' said Jane, 'that you are extraordinarily pretty, Kitty?'

'I spend a fortune on dresses which look cheap,' said Kitty, 'and so people think I am nice-looking.'

Jane thought such humility on the part of any one so pretty as Miss Sherard was a sign in her that she must be out of spirits; so she said, 'Oh, nonsense, Kitty!' in a very affectionate way, and begged that Miss Sherard would smoke a cigarette if she felt inclined.

'No,' said Kitty, 'I don't think I want to smoke.'

Jane drew her chair nearer the big chair on the hearth-rug, and, blowing out the candles, the two girls sat by the firelight.

Tenderness, as every one knows, is an ineradicable instinct of womanhood. Kitty Sherard might smoke cigarettes and drive in a very high dogcart, but just then her heart felt very nearly breaking, and she was so grateful to Jane for blowing out the lights and sitting near her that in defiance of her mood she began to laugh.

'What a moist party we were in church this morning!' she said, smiling broadly, and ignoring the fact that her eyes had tears in them. 'Miss Abingdon looked conscientiously tearful, and Mrs. Avory applied herself to her pocket-handkerchief as soon as the canon began his usual joyful Christmas message about empty chairs and absent friends.'

'Poor Mrs. Avory!' said Jane, 'weeping has become a sort of habit with her, and tears come very easily. If we had trimmed parasols and eaten tinned food for supper for a year or two, Kitty, I imagine we should become very tearful too.'

Miss Sherard unloosed the rose-coloured ribbon which bound her hair, and beginning to brush out her curls she said 'Yes,' slowly, and turned to other topics.

'Do you ever feel quite old, Jane?' she said at last. 'I do, especially during a long frost. I feel as if I had tried every single bit of pleasure that there is in the world and had come through it and out on the other side, and found that none of it was the least little bit of good.'

'Heaven send us a thaw soon!' exclaimed Jane.

'I quite adore my father,' said Kitty with emphasis, 'and I think he helps to keep me young; but it is rather pathetic, isn't it, that any one should think one so perfect as he thinks me?'

Jane rose ostentatiously from her place and opened the window and consulted a thermometer that hung outside.

'Still freezing hard,' she said, and returned to her seat again.

'You are rather a brick, Jane,' said Kitty.

'To-morrow,' said Jane, 'I shall certainly write to your father urging his immediate return before you begin to grow grey-haired.'

'You 've had a fairly odious Christmas Day,' said Kitty, not noticing the interruption. 'You 've had to dry Miss Abingdon's tears, and listen to Canon Wrottesley reading aloud, and you have had to be hearty to carol-singers and to waft holly-berries in the faces of mothers.

Why don't you throw something at me when I come to your room in the middle of the night as cross as a bear with a sore head, and begin to grumble at you?'

This remark Jane considered serious. 'The end of it will be, that you 'll get engaged to be married, Kitty,' she said, 'and then I shall jeer at you and recall to you every one of your past flirtations, and all your good resolutions about remaining single, and being happy ever after.'

'Is it really still Christmas Day?' said Kitty. 'I thought it began quite a week ago, and that we had had nights and nights of wa.s.sail bowls and old memories and Christmas-card cheerfulness.' She gathered up her hair-pins and brushes and gave a yawn. 'If it is nearly twelve o'clock I suppose I ought to go,' she said.

'I am not a bit sleepy,' quoth Jane.

'Apart from the fact of my winter being dull,' said Kitty, 'with my beloved parent in Rome, my temper is never proof against giving way when any one reads aloud to me. The story of the French vicomte is really answerable for my present horrible state of mind.'