The Girl at Cobhurst Part 20

The doctor looked at her earnestly.

"Do you suppose," said he, "that he would take money from you?"

"What I should do for him," she answered, "could not be prevented by him or any one else."

"But there is no reason," urged the other.

The old lady smiled, took off her gla.s.ses, wiped them with her handkerchief, and put them on again.

"There is so little in medicine books," she said. "His grandfather was my cousin."

"The one--?" asked the startled doctor.

"Yes, that very one," she answered quickly; "but he does not know it, and now we will drop the subject. I will try to get to Cobhurst to-morrow before Dora leaves, and I will see if I cannot help matters along a little."

The doctor laughed. "I was going to ask you to interfere with matters."

"Well, don't," she said. "And now tell me about your cook. Is she as good as ever?"

"As good?" said the doctor. "She is better. The more she learns about our tastes, the more perfectly she gratifies them. Mrs. Tolbridge and I look upon her as a household blessing, for she gives us three perfect meals a day, and would give us more if we wanted them; the butcher reverences her, for she knows more about meat and how to cut it than he does. Our man and our maid either tremble at her nod or regard her with the deepest affection, for I am told that they spend a great deal of their time helping her, when they should be attending to their own duties. She has, in fact, become so necessary to our domestic felicity, and I may say, to our health, that I do not know what will become of us if we lose her."

"Is there any chance of that?" eagerly asked the old lady.

"I fear there is," was the answer.

Miss Panney sprang to her feet, her eyes flashing.

"Now look here, Dr. Tolbridge," she said, "don't tell me that that woman is going to leave you because she wants higher wages and you will not pay them. I beg you to remember that I got you that woman. I saw she was what you needed, and I worked matters so that she came to you. She has proved to be everything that I expected. You are looking better now than I have seen you look for five years. You have been eating food that you like, and food that agrees with you, and a chance to do that comes to very few people in your circ.u.mstances. There is no way in which you could spend your money better than--"

The doctor raised his hand deprecatingly.

"There is no question of money," he said. "She has not asked for higher wages, and if she had, I should pay anything in reason. The trouble is more serious. You may remember that when she first came to this country, she lived with the Dranes, and she left them because they could no longer afford to employ her. She has the greatest regard for that family, and has lately heard that they are becoming poorer and poorer. There are only two of them,--mother and daughter,--and on account of some sort of unwise investment they are getting into a pretty bad way. I used to know Captain Drane, and was slightly acquainted with his family. I heard of their misfortune through a friend in Pennsylvania, and as I knew that La Fleur took such an interest in the family, I mentioned it to her. The result was disastrous; she has been in a doleful mood ever since, and yesterday a.s.sured Mrs. Tolbridge that if it should prove that Mrs. Drane and her daughter, who had been so good to her, had become so poor that they could not afford to employ a servant, she must leave us and go to them.

She would ask no wages and would take no denial. She would stay with them and serve them for the love she bore them, as long as they needed her. I know she is in earnest, for she immediately wrote to Mrs. Drane, and asked me to put the letter in the post-office; and, by the way, she writes a great deal better hand than I do."

Miss Panney, who had reseated herself, gazed earnestly at the floor.

"Doctor," she said, "this is very serious. I have not yet met La Fleur, but I very much want to. I am convinced that she is a woman of character, and when she says she intends to do a thing, she will do it. That is, unless somebody else of character, and of pretty strong character too, gets in her way. I do not know what advice to give you just now, but she must not leave you. That must be considered as settled. I am coming to your house to-morrow afternoon, and please ask Mrs. Tolbridge to be at home. We shall then see what is to be done."

"There is nothing to be done," said the doctor, rising. "We cannot improve the circ.u.mstances of the Dranes, and we cannot prevent La Fleur from going to them if her feelings prompt her to do it."

"Stuff!" said the old lady. "There is always something to be done. The trouble is, there is not always some one to do it; but, fortunately for some of my friends, I am alive yet."

CHAPTER XVI

"KEEP HER TO HELP YOU"

It was about ten o'clock the next morning when Miss Panney drove over to Cobhurst in her phaeton. She did not go up to the house, but tied her roan mare behind a clump of locust trees and bushes, where the animal might stand in peace and shade. Then she walked around the house, and hearing the clatter of crockery in the bas.e.m.e.nt, she looked down through a kitchen window, and saw Mike washing the breakfast dishes.

Going on toward the back of the house, she heard voices and laughter over in the garden. Behind a tangled ma.s.s of raspberries, she saw a pink sunbonnet and a straw hat with daisies in it. She knew, then, that Dora and Miriam were picking berries, and then her eyes and ears began to search for Ralph.

She went up on the back piazza and looked over toward the barn, which appeared to be closed, and around and about the house, but saw nothing of the young man. But she would wait; it was scarcely likely that he was at work in the fields by himself. He would probably appear soon, and, if possible, she wanted to speak to him before she saw any one else. She went into the house, and took a seat in the hall, where, through a narrow window by the side of the door, she had a good view of the garden and the grounds at the back, and could also command the front entrance of the house.

Miss Panney had been seated but a very few minutes when the two girls emerged from the bosky intricacies of the garden.

"Upon my word!" exclaimed the old lady, "she has got on Judith Pacewalk's teaberry gown. I could never forget that!"

At this moment there was a clatter of hoofs and a rattle of wheels, and a brown horse, drawing a very loose-jointed wagon, with Ralph Haverley, in a broad hat and light tennis jacket, driving, dashed up to the back door and stopped with a jerk.

"Back so soon!" cried Miriam. "See what a lot of raspberries we have picked. I will take them into the house, and then come out and get the things you have brought."

As Miriam went around toward the kitchen, Ralph sprang to the ground, and Dora approached him. Miss Panney could see her face under the sunbonnet.

It was suffused with the light of a smiling, beaming welcome.

"You did go quickly, didn't you?" she said. "You must be a good driver."

"I didn't want to lose any time," answered Ralph, "and I made Mrs.

Browning step along lively. As it was, I was afraid that your brother might arrive before I got back and that I might find you were gone."

"It was a pity," said Dora, "that you troubled yourself to hurry back.

You may have wanted to do other things in Thorbury, and if Herbert missed seeing you to-day he would have plenty of other opportunities."

Ralph laughed. "I should like to meet your brother," he said, "but I am bound to say that I was thinking more of the new cook. I did not want her to leave before I got back."

Dora raised her sunbonnet toward him. Miriam's steps were heard approaching.

"You might have felt sure," she said, "that she would not have gone without seeing you again. You have been so kind and good to her that she would not think of doing that." Then, as Miriam was very near, she approached the wagon. "Did you get the snowflake flour, as I told you?"

she asked. "Yes, I see you did, and I am glad you listened to my advice, and bought only a bag of it, for you know you may not like it."

"If it is the flour you use, I know we shall like it," said Ralph; "but still I am bound to follow your advice."

"You would better follow me, now," said Miriam, who had taken some parcels from the wagon, "and bring that bag into the pantry. I do not like Mike to come into our part of the house with his boots."

Ralph shouldered the bag, and Dora stepped up to him.

"I will stay with the horse until you come out again," she said, not speaking very loudly.

Miss Panney, who had heard all that had been said, smiled, and her black eyes twinkled. "Truly," she said to herself, "for so short an acquaintance, this is getting on wonderfully."

Miriam, her arms full of parcels, and her mind full of household economy, walked rapidly by Miss Panney without seeing her at all, and, entering the dining-room, pa.s.sed through it into the pantry. But when Ralph appeared in the open doorway, the old lady rose and confronted him, her finger on her lip.

"I have just popped in to make a little call on your sister," she whispered; "but I saw she was pretty well loaded as she pa.s.sed, and I did not wish to embarra.s.s her--I do not mind embarra.s.sing you. Don't put down the bag, I beg. I shall step into the drawing-room, and you can say I am there. By the way, who is that young woman standing by the horse?"

"It is Miss Bannister," answered Ralph, his face unreasonably flushing as he spoke. "She is visiting Miriam and helping her."

When Miss Panney wished to influence a person in favor of or against another person, she was accustomed to go about the business in a very circ.u.mspect way, and to accommodate the matter and the manner of her remarks to the disposition of the person addressed, and to the occasion.