Sweethearts at Home Part 11

Hugh John's grasp of detail was something marvelous.

And, indeed, as I looked, through the tremble of the heat-mist the slender figure of Elizabeth Fortinbras jigged into view. She was standing on tiptoe, like the girl in the old ill.u.s.trated nursery Caldecott, when

"By came a blackbird and snapped off her nose."

Which would certainly have been a pity in Elizabeth's case, for the nose was a very pretty saucy one, and worthy of a better fate. She had on a short skirt. Her feet were thrust into sandals, and her white working blouse, open at the neck, had red peas on it. Concerning all which points Hugh John had nothing to learn.

Now I had always liked Elizabeth. There was something wild-wood and gay as a bird about her. She wore the simplest dresses, made by herself, and when she played in our woods there was a good deal of tomboy about her.

She was older than any of us, and had often been our leader in high-spy or at running through the wood.

I could run faster, but (as Hugh John said) I ran like a boy, with my hands clasped and my elbows in. As for the way that Elizabeth ran, that was quite different. She ran--just like Elizabeth.

But the way she tossed about the youngsters was a sight. She romped with them among the hay. She thought nothing of bringing back Maid Margaret on her back for miles and miles, with a hop and a skip at every second pace, as if only to show how lightly her burden sat astride her shoulders, and how entirely impossible it was for Elizabeth herself to walk along in a sedate and ladylike way. Like a questing collie, she constantly left the highway. You could see her mount a bank as if she had wings. She was wayward, uncertain as a bird, fitful as a b.u.t.terfly, changing her purpose with the whim of the children. Indeed, there was no one, in the opinion of all of us when we were little, like Elizabeth Fortinbras.

It was like spying out some shy fleeing wood-nymph to see her, with a few long, easy movements, springing and bounding across the stepping-stones of the upper river--or, the petticoat held daintily high, all in a faint flurry of white spray and whiter feet, negotiating the shallow ford at the first Torres Vedras when we were paddling there in the hot days.

Yet, when once across, she never seemed to have "shipped a drop," as Sir Toady Lion a.s.serted in his best naval manner.

Rather, be it said, she gave herself a shake like a scudding swallow that has dipped its wing a little too deep in the pond, and lo! our Elizabeth was dry again. She never had so much as to preen a feather.

They always tell me that I am a little in love with Elizabeth myself, and I am not ashamed of it. Once, from his hiding-place, Hugh John showed me a young dainty fawn come stepping lightly through the wood. I saw it skip airily across the Esk below the second Torres Vedras, ascend the bank in three bounds, walk demurely across the road like a maiden coming out of church, look about her as if gathering her skirts for something daring, and then, with one sidelong bound, swift and light, lo, she was over the high paling and lost in the wood!

Elizabeth Fortinbras would have done it just like that, as gracefully and as unconsciously. But to think of her taking a place in the Donnan's Confectionery shop--surely his good angel had for once forsaken Hugh John--plan-maker to the world in general, and private domestic Solomon!

"Go and _ask_ Elizabeth Fortinbras!" said Hugh John--and he said it as if he had good reason to know that Elizabeth would accept. Though that might only be his usual accent of quiet certainty. You see, Hugh John compels belief. Confidence accrues to his lightest guess, which is not accorded to Sir Toady on his oath. It is a shame that any one should be so favored by nature in the matter of his word. I, being a girl, am suspected of inaccuracy, Sir Toady of "monkeying," and Maid Margaret of knowing nothing about the matter.

But Hugh John may be inaccurate. He may be "monkeying" in secret, and he may know less than any one else about any matter. Nevertheless he is accredited like a plenipotentiary. He moves like Diogenes, his tub unseen about him. A calm certainty accompanies him. He inspires confidence, blind as that of a bank cashier in the multiplication table.

All, too, without break, without insistence. To look at, he is just a tall lad, with singularly quiet manners, who looks at you fixedly out of gray eyes very wide apart. Only--you believe him.

But that is the reason why, in my secretest heart, as soon as Hugh John said, "Ask Elizabeth Fortinbras!" I knew that Elizabeth Fortinbras would accept.

I had to ask her myself. Or rather I took Mrs. Donnan with me, who did as she was told, smiling and stammering apologies in the proper places.

As for me, I said what Hugh John had advised me to say, in our last long talk together up in the Cave.

Of course it was no use in the world consulting Elizabeth's parents. Her father was lost in dreams of making another fortune by a new and original b.u.t.ter-cooler which would put all others out of the market. Her mother, fretful and fine-ladyish, would declare that she could not do without her. But I knew that it would be an exceedingly good thing for her younger sister to get her nose taken out of the _Penny Novelette_.

If Elizabeth went, she would have to do the housework, and so might yet save her soul--though as yet she had shown no signs of possessing any.

We talked to Elizabeth, however, or at least I did, without any mention of this. There were many knick-knacks about, on the mantelpiece, on the tables, on brackets set in corners--all the work of that ingenious, useless man, Mr. Robert Fortinbras. As we talked, Elizabeth moved gracefully about among these, her duster never hurried, never idle.

I never saw any one who could "play at work" as Elizabeth could. Any one else would have sat down and received her guests. Not so Elizabeth. If we chose to come at eleven o'clock in the morning--well, we must take her as we found her. In another quarter of an hour, if we stayed, we would be asked to come into her kitchen, and watch her peeling potatoes.

And that would have seemed quite natural--not only to Elizabeth, but to us.

Elizabeth did not reply hastily. She heard me out without sign either of consent or of refusal. Mrs. Donnan, stout and motherly, purred acquiescence. Yes, they would give her the warmest welcome--if she cared to stay, the happiest home. But no doubt she would prefer to return to her own home at nights.

The next words which reached our ears were Elizabeth all over. "If I come, I shall stay," she said, "because if I went home, the work of the house would simply be left till I got back!"

The reason was clear, and almost the consent.

"Had you not better consult your father and mother?" I said, a little breathlessly, having been brought up in the faith of obedience to parents.

But in this matter Elizabeth, taught by long experience, had evolved other methods.

"I will _tell_ them," she said simply. "When do you want me to begin?

Monday? Very well!"

And it was on Tuesday that Nipper Donnan began to neglect his business.

XI

ELIZABETH

_September 11 of the same year. Going Sixteen now._

Now I suppose you think this is going to be a love-story. But it isn't--at least not so far. And I am sure the hero won't be either of the two _you_ think--not, that is, Hugh John or Nipper Donnan.

But I am going to tell the story of the strangest, the delicatest friendship I have ever seen--that of Hugh John, my brother, and Elizabeth Fortinbras.

He is the youngest hero you can imagine, but somehow is much more like a young man who has shaved himself very close than the schoolboy he is.

Nothing puts Hugh John out. When he has some big festival to attend along with father, he sits quiet and self-possessed, doing his part without a quiver on his face. As far as looks go, he could easily be the chairman. The clean-cut outlines of his face do not denote hardness.

Only he is of the Twentieth Century, and an adept at concealing his sensations--even from his parents, with whom he is great friends.

But, for all that modernity, there is something essentially knightly, and even knight-errant, about our Hugh John. An elder time has touched him. Ideas growing, alas! extinct--are natural to him. A chivalrous Cromwellian is perhaps the nearest I can come in the way of definition.

For years he was the only one in the house (except Fuz, of course) who sustained Roundhead as against Cavalier. Yet all his outer man (surely a boy has an "outer man" when he is six feet high) is that of the Collegians who rallied about the King at Oxford, and swept away the train-bands with Rupert the Prince at Marston Moor. But Hugh John agrees with Mr. Prynne as to the Unloveliness of Love-Locks, and no Sergeant-Major could carry a closer cropped head of hair.

Also the mind within him is one that abhors restraint. That is, in thinking. In acting, he obeys as a principle all justly const.i.tuted authorities. Also, if _he_ is in authority, he will insist upon obedience even unto the shedding of blood.

Only the mind is free and untrammeled. Obedience includes only acts.

Thought with him is free, liberal, critical, large.

But Hugh John is generally shy with the girls who come to our house. He retires to one of his fastnesses, a lonely David in some unknown Engedi.

He blots himself out. Simply, _he is not_--so far, that is, as the rest of the house is concerned. But he has the most sharply defined and sudden affinities. He will see a girl for the first time--the most reserved, unlikely girl, shy as himself. He will go up to her, and lo!

as like as not, five minutes afterwards they will pair off like two schoolboys arm in arm.

Grown-up People, after a certain while, forget how their own friendships were formed--how much was chance, how little intention, and they judge _us_ in the light of what they now _think_ they were. They are "out"

every time with Hugh John.

For instance, I know Somebody who was afraid he was going to fall in love with Elizabeth Fortinbras. No such good luck! _I_ knew. The first time I surprised them having a good talk together I saw that Elizabeth would take advice from that gray-eyed boy with a man's thoughts which she would scorn from any one else.

It was the day after we had been to see the Donnans. When I got home, Hugh John had merely said, "When does Elizabeth begin?"

"Monday," said I; "but how in the world did you know?"

"I did not know _that_!" he answered gravely, as usual.