The Fortunes of the Farrells Part 36

"But--" Jack made a slight but eloquent gesture of the head in Victor's direction. "It's such a walk over for somebody else! I can't bear the thought of it. This place ought to belong to one of those girls--it is theirs by rights. It maddens me to see them throwing away their chance, for I'm afraid Mr Farrell will never forgive them for going against his wishes."

"Don't be too sure!" returned Mrs Thornton, nodding her head sagely.

"Mr Farrell is not half so obstinate as he pretends, and however annoyed he may be to-day he can't help softening when he remembers that they have put all their own pleasures and self-interests on one side to return to work and worry for their mother's sake. If he wanted a test of character, surely nothing could be better than this! I don't think it will be by any means a 'walk over' for Mr Druce. My firm belief is, that Ruth and Mollie have as good or even a better chance than they had before."

"I say," cried Jack cordially, "you _are_ a brick!" He turned towards her with a bright, boyish smile, which took years off his age. "You don't know how you have cheered me by saying that! I hated to think of them as being out of the running; but you will rub it in, won't you?

Don't let Druce have it all his own way! Impress upon the old fellow what you said just now--unselfishness and hard work, and all that sort of thing. You will know how to do it, so as to make him see that he ought to admire the girls more for going than staying."

Mrs Thornton smiled indulgently.

"I can try, at least. I'm only sorry that I can't do the same for you.

You have not the excuse of home troubles, and I'm afraid Mr Farrell--"

"Oh, never mind me; I don't count! I have been out of the running from the first, and it is only through an accident that I have stayed so long. I don't want anything from Mr Farrell but good-feeling and a fair judgment. It cut me up to say good-bye when I saw how feeble he looked. I don't want you to plead my cause, because I relinquished my claim long ago; but if you get a chance, you might just let him know that I was genuinely sorry to leave him for his own sake."

Jack's manly, straightforward speech was just what Mrs Thornton expected from him, and she gladly consented to convey his message to Mr Farrell.

"I will, with pleasure," she said, "and I shall have the chance before many days are over. Wonders will never cease! When I said just now that the squire was not so hard as he pretended, I spoke out of a full heart. What do you think of his suggesting--actually suggesting to my husband that the vicarage might need renovations, and asking him to send me up to give him my ideas! I nearly fainted when my husband told me.

Now, do you think he thought of it himself, or did one of you kind creatures suggest it to him?"

"I didn't, I know. It would have been as much as my life was worth; but I suspect Miss Mollie may have had something to do with it. She spoke pretty strongly on the subject to me, and she has the courage of her convictions."

"Oh, that Mollie!" murmured Mrs Thornton under her breath. "I have never met her equal. The dearest, the simplest, the most affectionate of girls!" Her eyes moistened suddenly, and Jack's face softened in sympathy as he looked across the room to where Mollie stood by her sister's side. She met the two glances bent upon her, and walked forward in response, leaving Ruth and Victor by themselves.

Poor Ruth! Her heart beat fast with agitation and a last desperate hope born of Victor's soft tones and regretful eyes. For the moment it seemed that the last few days must have been a nightmare, and that he really did "care"; in which case she was prepared to forgive everything--nay, more, to believe that there was nothing to forgive.

If, in this moment of trouble and humiliation, he would place himself by her side, nothing that she could do in the future would be enough to prove her grat.i.tude and devotion. But, alas! even as Mollie turned away, Victor's manner altered, and he became nervous and ill at ease.

The long, eloquent glances which had been safe enough in the presence of a third person could not be risked in a _tete-a-tete_, and Ruth's hopes died a final death. She sat trying to eat her sandwiches, and feeling as if every bite would choke her, while Victor feebly struggled with commonplaces.

The sound of carriage-wheels could be heard drawing near to the door; the last, the very last moment had arrived! Ruth raised her beautiful, sad face and gazed steadily at Victor, and he stopped short in the middle of a sentence, and turned guiltily aside. He could not meet her eyes.

After that all was bustle and confusion--servants crowding to say good- bye, villagers bobbing farewell curtseys at their doors, elaborate regrets and hopes for a speedy return from acquaintances at the little station, tears from Mrs Thornton, and a last glimpse of Victor's tall figure standing motionless on the platform; then they were off, and Jack tactfully busied himself behind his newspaper until the first painful moments were past.

When he ventured to lower the screen, both girls were perfectly composed and dry-eyed, gazing out of their respective windows. His eyes turned from Ruth to dwell upon Mollie at the further end of the carriage. The fashionable young woman had disappeared, and he saw again the simple girl in shabby serge coat and close-fitting hat with whom he had travelled weeks before, yet there was a difference which his fastidious eyes were quick to note, a dainty precision in the way the clothes were worn, a perfection of detail, a neatness of coiffure.

Mollie was too clever and adaptive to have missed the lessons of the last few weeks, and the change of expression was even more marked. The audacious school-girl had disappeared, and in her place sat a woman, with a grave, set face, and eyes that stared into s.p.a.ce, seeing things that were far away.

Jack's heart contracted with a stab of pain. He dropped his paper, and with one long step crossed the carriage and seated himself by her side.

Ruth turned in her seat to stare more persistently out of her window, and the clattering of the train made it impossible to overhear a conversation.

"Mollie!" said Jack softly.

She turned her head and looked at him, neither startled nor smiling, but with a patient sadness, the sight of which brought with it yet another stab.

"For Heaven's sake, Mollie, don't look like that! Things will right themselves again, or you may find that they are not so bad as you expect. In any case, there's a pleasure in helping to pull them straight. It may be a tug just at first, but that only means more satisfaction in the end. Don't look so sad! I can't bear to leave you looking like that."

Mollie gave a flickering smile. She had not been thinking of business troubles, but naturally Jack could not guess that.

"Once on a time--do you remember?--you wished that I could be serious.

You should not complain because your wish is fulfilled," she said slowly; and Jack put up a protesting hand.

"Don't! don't! I was a fool! I didn't know what I was saying. You were made to be happy; you should always be happy if I could arrange it for you."

Mollie smiled again, but with the same obvious effort.

"I hope you will be happy," she said; "I hope some day we may hear good news from you. I don't mean about money; you can guess what I mean."

"Yes," said Jack gravely; and there was silence for another five minutes, while the train approached nearer and nearer to the junction at which he was to alight, to catch the express for town.

"I hope I shall hear good news of you, too," he said at last. "You will be busy at first, and there may not be much to tell, but later on--in a few weeks' time, when you see how things are going--will you let me know? I shall be so interested to hear; and at any time if I can do anything, if you need anything done in town, or if I could help by coming North, you would be doing me a good turn by letting me know. I mean it, Mollie; it is not a polite form of speech."

"I know; thank you; I will promise," said Mollie, with, for the first time, a little break in her composure. Her lip trembled in a pathetic, childlike fashion, and, as if afraid of herself, she bent forward and addressed a pointed question to Ruth.

Ten minutes later the junction was reached, and Jack stood outside the carriage saying his last farewells. Ruth talked persistently in a high, cheerful voice, and Jack bit his moustache and cast furtive glances at Mollie's white face. She smiled at him bravely as the train steamed away, and waved her hand, calling out, "Good luck! good luck!" Then they turned, the two poor girls, and clasped each other tightly.

"Oh, Lucille, my poor Lucille!"

"Berengaria, Berengaria, how horribly it hurts!"

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

BACK TO POVERTY.

Trix was at the station to meet them--a greatly developed Trix, as became a young woman who not only provided for her own education but also that of her sister. The door-knocker had disappeared, and her lanky locks were screwed into a knot about as big as a good-sized walnut; she wore a discarded black skirt of Ruth's, which reached down to her ankles, a blue blouse, white sailor-hat, and brown shoes. Ruth's heart contracted with pain when she saw her, and even Mollie felt a pang of dismay. So shabby, so unkempt, so obviously poverty-stricken! Was it really possible that Trix had looked like this six weeks before, and that the sight had caused no consternation?

Plainly Miss Trix was rather pleased than otherwise with her appearance, and was decidedly patronising to her half-sisters, ordering them about, and treating them with the lenient forbearance which a busy worker might be expected to show to two elderly, incapable drones. She interviewed the porter as to sending home the luggage, and only consented to the hire of a cab when it was proved to her own satisfaction that the cost would be about equal. She took Ruth's purse from her hand to tip the porter, looking at him the while with such a severe and determined air that his grumbles died upon his lips; finally, she gave the cabman instructions to stop at a certain shop, where--as she informed her sisters triumphantly--potatoes could be bought three-halfpence a peck cheaper than in more fashionable neighbourhoods.

"Good gracious, Trix, you don't mean to take home potatoes in the cab!"

gasped Ruth, fresh from the delightful luxury of the Court, where no one thought what anything cost, and every luxury of the season appeared of its own accord upon the table; but Trix smiled at her benignly, and replied--

"Certainly; two pecks! And any other vegetables I can pick up cheap.

It will help to pay for the cab-fare. Not that you will get any of them to-night, for we have knocked off late dinner and afternoon-tea, and have one late tea instead. Cold tongue for you to-night, as you have had a journey. Mother wanted to have a chicken. The idea! 'No, indeed,' I said; 'let them begin as they must go on. Our chicken days are over!'"

"I think yours are, any way. You seem to have grown into a very old hen," cried Mollie disconsolately. She looked across the cab at the businesslike young woman, and wondered if a few weeks of home under the new conditions would work a similar transformation in herself and Ruth.

It was a comfort to remember that Trix's vocation kept her out of the house for the greater part of the day, for it would be distinctly trying to be "bossed" as a permanent thing.

Perhaps Trix's thoughts had wandered to the same subject, for her welcome was the reverse of encouraging.

"Can't think what you've come back for!" she declared candidly. "Mother thought of sending for you last week, but I told her it was absurd. It will make more work, and both the servants are going. We gave Mary notice, and Kate said she couldn't abase herself to be a 'general' after her bringings up. Goodness knows who we shall get! I sat for two hours in a registry-office yesterday afternoon, when we had a half-holiday, and didn't see a single creature who could be bribed to come. 'Nine in family; one servant, cellar kitchens; washing done at home.' Sounds so attractive, doesn't it? And yet I suppose we ought not to afford even one. If we lived in the country we could do the work alone, but c.o.c.kroaches! No really refined mind can cope with c.o.c.kroaches, and they simply swarm in the back kitchen... Mother's terribly cut up that you have left the Court. If I had been in your place I'd have stayed on, and persuaded the old man to help father out of his difficulties."

"Oh, Trix, as if we hadn't tried! You talk as if no one had any sense but yourself! You are very clever and important, no doubt, but even your earnings will not keep the family. There is a little work left for Mollie and myself!" cried Ruth hotly.

Whereupon Trix elevated the red marks which should have been her eyebrows, and exclaimed coolly--

"Hallo, still snapping! I thought you would be quite good-tempered after such a holiday!"

It was indeed like being at home again to hear a squabble between Ruth and Trix within the first ten minutes.