Sisters Part 32

"Oh, what little loves!" Deb then exclaimed, her eyes upon the young inhabitants--five little fat, white, vigorous creatures in various stages of preparation for bed.

"There is one absent," explained Rose, in accents of keen regret.

"John, the eldest; he is paying a visit to his grandparents. This is Constance, the second"--a golden-haired girl, enjoying her nightly treat of nursing the new baby. "And this is Kathleen"--a chubby creature in a flannel dressing-gown, waiting for her bath; "and Lucy"--being rubbed down by the nursery underling, Jane; "and Pennycuick"--Deb started at the name, and was uncertain whether it pleased her or not in this connection--the baby but one, in the tub under the hands of old head-nurse Keziah. "ARE they not sweet?"

They really were. Clean-blooded, clear-eyed, well-fed, well-kept, full of life and fun--the pride of the maternal heart was amply justified.

Deb plunged into the group delightedly, kissed them, teased them, tickled them, did everything a proper aunt should do; and Rose was in ecstasies.

"Oh, Debbie," she pleaded, "DON'T go yet! Stay with them for a little.

Stay and see baby undressed--I always do it myself--and have a bit of dinner with us; you will, won't you? Give me my nursing ap.r.o.n, Jane."

As she tied the sheet of flannel over her smart gown, she whispered to Jane:

"Go down and tell Mr Breen that Miss Pennycuick is going to stay to dinner."

Then she turned up her sleeves, settled herself upon a low chair, and, with bath-tub and belaced toilet basket, and warming night-clothes around her, performed the task that made this hour the happiest of her happy day. As closely as the romping children allowed, Deb watched her, and marvelled at her quick skill and lightness of hand. Who would have thought that little Rose could be so clever? The healthy baby, so deftly handled, raised no protest, but curled her toes as if she enjoyed it; and when all was done, the snowy-robed, perfumed creature was laid to its young mother's generous breast, and sucked itself to sleep in five minutes. Deb, wistfully observant, began to dimly apprehend that to wish Rose's marriage undone would be about as kind as to wish back to earth the dead whom we believe in heaven.

Meanwhile, Peter had been bustling about after such dinner arrangements as he could attend to. Mr Th.o.r.n.ycroft himself had never taken more pains to please this guest. Deb enjoyed strawberries for the first time that season, and a gla.s.s of wine that even Claud could not have carped at. Coffee was brought to the drawing-room, from which Rose slipped away for a whispered colloquy with her husband in the hall; the result of which was that they came in together to ask Miss Pennycuick to do them the honour of standing G.o.dmother to the baby. Deb put the crown upon the gracious day by promptly consenting.

"But that," she thought, with some chagrin, as she rolled homewards--or rather, bedwards--with Peter's flowers in the carriage beside her--"that is the extent of my tether in this direction. A christening mug, and a bit of jewellery on her birthdays--I shall be allowed that; otherwise I can be of no more use to them than if I were a workhouse pauper. They are independent of me and of everybody."

CHAPTER XXIII.

The years pa.s.sed, and the destinies of our friend began to take final shape. The bread cast upon the waters returned. The chickens came home to roost.

One winter's morning Captain Guthrie Carey brought his ship into Hobson's Bay. The agents of his company sent letters to him there. He took one from the sheaf, and read it carefully--read it four times.

Then he tore it into little pieces and dropped it over the side. The pilot and the first officer wondered at the concentrated gravity of his mien, at the faraway look in his cold blue eyes. Yet is was a very short and simple letter. There were no names inside, and it merely said:

"I returned by last mail, and am at the above address. I shall be at home tomorrow afternoon at five. Of course I am seeing n.o.body, so we shall be quite undisturbed. Be punctual, if possible."

The "above address" was the big house that had belonged to the late Mr Ewing. "Tomorrow afternoon" was but an hour off.

At five precisely Captain Carey shed his ulster in the palatial vestibule, and at the heels of a soft-footed man-servant, marched through the warm hall and up the shallow, m.u.f.fled stairs to the familiar drawing-room--a long room, the lower end of which was in shadow, and the upper illuminated like a shrine, with rosy lamps projecting from a forest of chimney ornament, and a great bright red fire twinkling upon tiles and bra.s.s. The big palms were in their big pots, spreading and bowing over settees and cosy corners; every bowl and vase overflowed with the choicest flowers, although it was wintry June. And the tea-table was ready; the old seductive chairs and tables were grouped upon the Persian hearthrug in the old way, with the sheltering screen half round them. Indications of the desire of the mistress of the house to give him special welcome were too marked and many to be ignored.

He was left here to meditate in solitude for a few minutes, and he did all the meditating that was possible in the time. His heart thumped rather faster than was necessary, but his strong face was a picture of composed determination. Indeed, it was not easy to recognise the young Guthrie Carey of old Redford days in this stern, tough, substantial man, steady as a rock amid the winds and waves of incalculable fate.

Just now he had the look of a military commander braced for a pitched battle. And the V.C. has been won for many a less courageous enterprise than that on which he was now engaged.

Leaning his broad shoulders on the ledge of the mantelpiece, and roasting his stout calves at the glorious fire, he watched the distant doorway with narrowed but keenly-glinting eyes. When he saw the dim curtain lift to let in the light from the landing and a slim woman's figure, he straightened himself, and set his teeth hard. It had to be faced and fought, he felt, and the sooner it was over the better for them both.

She came fluttering up to him, with both hands held out. How white they were against the c.r.a.pe! And how wonderfully her complexion and her hair were set off by the black robe and the fine lawn bands at throat and wrists! He loathed the mockery of the widow's weeds, but thought he had never seen her look so lovely.

"Oh, Guthrie! Oh, what YEARS it seems! Were you wondering what had become of me? But I couldn't--somehow I didn't feel that I COULD--before--"

She cast herself into his arms in the most natural way in the world. He laid one of them round her waist lightly, and kissed her brow; then, when she lifted it for the purpose, her mouth--the sweetest woman's mouth that ever made a pair of soft eyes omnipotent. After some seconds of silence, she looked at him questioningly, all a-quiver with nervous excitement. Her delicate cheek was pink like a La France rose.

"It was so good of you to come," she murmured humbly. "It wasn't--it didn't bother you? You were not wanting to do something else, were you, dear?" There was revealed in tone and manner the fact that even selfish Frances had come to care for something more than for herself.

"No--oh, no," he replied, rather breathlessly. "I WAS going up the country this afternoon, but fortunately I got your letter in time."

"Oh, if you had! What should I have done? I couldn't stand it any longer, Guthrie. It is four whole months--since--though it seems like yesterday--"

"And how are you?" he broke in, taking a fresh grip of the sword, as it were.

He held her off from him, glancing at her shoulder, her skirt--anything but her eyes, which were HER sword, two-edged and deadly.

"Oh, don't look at me!" she exclaimed, shrinking. "I hate myself in this horrible gown--I feel so mean and hypocritical--though I do mourn for him, Guthrie. You must not think I feel happy because he is dead--no, indeed; I wish I could! But one must conform to a certain extent, mustn't one? And every respect that I can possibly show to his memory--especially after the way he has treated me! I suppose you heard--" "What?" Guthrie had heard, but asked the question to fill time.

"Five thousand a year," said she, "at my absolute and entire disposal, with no restriction or condition of any sort or kind."

She made the announcement in a level tone, and without a smile, but he detected the triumph and satisfaction underneath; and, feeling much the stronger for it, he observed gravely that the dead man was a good man.

"And I always knew it, Francie, worse luck!"

"Oh, so did I! Far--far too good for the likes of me. But--well, we need not talk about that now. We couldn't help ourselves, could we? And the past is past; everything is different now. Oh, Guthrie, what it is to kiss you without feeling that I am doing wrong!"

She kissed him as she said it, pressing him to her. Of course he kissed her back, but his hands on her waist were rigid, as if he wore an evening shirt, and was afraid of her crushing the front of it. She might have noticed this if she had not caught a glimpse of herself at the moment in a mirror behind him.

"One thing," she said, "I did draw the line at. I positively refused to wear a cap. I knew--I knew you couldn't have borne THAT!" Holding her charming head, rippled all over with goldenchestnut curls and coils, just in front of his eyes, she pleaded for confirmation of this statement. "You couldn't have stood seeing me in a cap, could you, Guthrie?" "As far as I can judge," he replied, "n.o.body asks you to wear caps these days, whether you're a widow or not. Why, the very grandmothers go about in yellow fringes and things, pretending they are thirty or forty, when everybody knows they are twice that, at the least. When I was a youngster, there used to be old ladies--my mother was one; but the race has died out."

"I, at any rate, am not an old lady," Mrs Ewing remarked, with a joyous smile. "My yellow fringes and things are all my own, and so is my complexion, and so are my teeth."

Her smile widened to reveal their pearly excellence. She took his hand, and rubbed the back of it on her downy cheek, and laid the palm on her soft, thick locks. Even yet she did not see that anything was the matter, confident in her still young beauty, and in the fact that he now knew for certain that the bulk of her husband's property was hers.

How often she had wondered whether he knew or not, feeling sure that he MUST have heard the news at some of the many ports he had put into since it had become a matter of public knowledge, and why he allowed days and weeks, even months, to pa.s.s without making a sign. There had always been the cables, anyway. She put it down to his delicacy, his sense of the awkwardness of the situation, his consideration for her.

"We will have tea first," she said, touching the bell-b.u.t.ton. "Then we shall not be disturbed any more. We can talk till dinner-time. Oh, how I wish you could stay for dinner, and a long, long evening! But it is better not to do things of that sort yet, don't you think? Better not to run risks of making scandal now that there's no longer any need for it."

"Much better," said Captain Carey firmly.

"And, after all, there are lots of ways that we can meet without doing anything improper. I have thought of heaps. I can go to Sydney--I can go home, for that matter; I am a perfectly free agent. And we have now less than three-quarters of a year. Guthrie, I want you to let me have the twelve months good. It is a long wait, I know, but we should feel the benefit of it afterwards--"

"Hush-sh!"

She glanced down the room in alarm, and saw the door open to admit the servant she had summoned. He brought teapot and kettle, hot cakes and m.u.f.fins, and arranged them with unnecessary carefulness on the little table by the fireside. Hostess and guest watched his slow manoeuvres with an impatient but fascinated gaze, and tried to think about something to talk about for his edification, and could not.

"Thank you, Willis; that will do, Willis. I'll ring if I want anything else. I don't know, Captain Carey, whether you are one of those people who despise tea and cake--"

They were alone once more. Captain Carey refused the proffered refreshment. Mrs Ewing, making no effort to persuade him, took a few mouthfuls hastily; then she set her cup down, and with a quick flirt of the hand, extinguished the two pink lamps. They were old-fashioned gas-lamps too.

"We don't want lights to talk by," she said, in a casual way. "The firelight is enough. I think firelight at this hour so much the pleasantest, don't you?"

"Oh, yes," he responded desperately, and indeed was glad of the shelter of a shadow on his face; but he said to himself, with clenched hands and a long indrawn breath, "Now comes the tug-of-war."

A very large and wide sofa, low, deep-seated, full of springs and down pillows, stood in the cosy firelight, a great, tall, curving screen behind it. Mrs Ewing--as she had done many times before--crossed over to this sofa, sank into its yielding depths, and looking up at her companion, patted the empty seat beside her. The man hesitated for an instant, and then--as he had done many times before--obeyed the significant gesture. But now the time for preparation, for hesitation, had expired; it was necessary to brace himself for the decisive deed.

Even as she clasped her hands beneath his ear, he unclasped them, gently but firmly, and drew them down. With his back to the firelight, she could not see his face, but he could see hers, and the swift change in its expression. She was puzzled and surprised, but, as her hands were still held fast in his iron fists, resting on his knee, she was not conscious of the state of the case.

"My girl," he said, clearing his throat--she had allowed him so many liberties that this mode of address was quite in order--"you and I can speak plainly to each other. There's no need for us to beat about the bush, is there?"