The Girls of St. Olave's Part 11

But the anger and the pride predominated, and swept away all tenderer feelings, and she met Sam Willard in the evening with a laugh and a toss of the head, and wished that Jane were there to see.

CHAPTER XI.

WITH A PURPOSE.

When Gertrude made up her mind to seek out a marriage-portion for herself, whose chief ingredient should be money, with love as a secondary consideration, she set herself with her usual cool forethought to consider the matter of Reggie Alston.

Reggie was a friend, and a friend only he must remain, and to this end the regular correspondence which he and she had kept up since Reggie left school, must become irregular and fitful. If only he would take his summer holiday in the school holidays, Gertrude thought she could manage somehow to be away when he was at home, and that would break the continuity of other summer holidays when they two had spent much time together, cycling and playing tennis. It was a pity for the boy to set his heart on what could not be. Reggie ought to look out for a girl with money, or at any rate for a girl who--who--liked being poor.

The result of these cogitations was that many a time when Reggie confidently looked for a letter, none came, and when the dulness of a week's work did happen to be enlivened by one of Gertrude's epistles, somehow the letters were short and unsatisfactory and spoke only of the most casual on-the-top-of-things topics. Reggie wondered over it in silence. He hated writing scolding letters, and like Tom Green, he felt that no amount of talking or writing could bring love, and at first he only felt the miss of the regular correspondence, without seeking for a reason other than the excuse that Gertrude must be extra busy at school, or that she had fresh duties laid upon her since Denys's engagement, of which he had heard a full account before Gertrude had thought of reducing her correspondence.

He little dreamed that Gertrude herself missed the writing of those old confidential letters far more than she had expected. She had always saved up all the little experiences and jokes of school and home to tell Reggie, and now it was very dull to be always pulling herself up to remember to make her letters short and few and casual.

But when Easter Monday and his birthday arrived together, without bringing any birthday remembrance other than a letter from his old chum, Charlie Henchman, Reggie's heart went down to a depth for which he had no idea there was room in his mechanism.

He had come down to breakfast in his dull little parlour, confidently expecting to see Gertrude's handwriting on his table, and it was not there.

He sat down mechanically and looked round the dull little room, and the dulness of it, the dinginess, the unhomelikeness of it struck on his heart as it had never done before.

The small horsehair sofa where he sometimes tried to find a resting-place and failed; the tiny chiffonnier, unenlightened by a looking-gla.s.s or any ornament save a vase, which had been one of Gertrude's childish birthday presents to him, and which he always kept filled with flowers and called them Gertrude's flowers; the uncomfortable horsehair arm-chair and the bare breakfast table with its coa.r.s.e cloth and clumsy china, had all been bearable while he looked forward to a dainty and pretty, though tiny, home with Gertrude.

The half loaf of bread and the pat of b.u.t.ter which always tasted of the chiffonnier-cupboard, but had to be kept there because when a piece went out to the larder, none ever returned, filled him with loathing this morning.

Why was there no letter from Gertrude? His landlady bustled in with his tea and a rasher of bacon and a slice of toast, the last item, as she remarked, being for a birthday treat, and he roused himself from his disappointment to thank her for the little attention, and when she was gone he slowly opened Charlie's letter.

It was just a newsy, chatty letter, telling of the pleasures of his holiday at Whitecliff and especially of the pleasure of being with Denys for a whole week, but when he came to one sentence, written only with the thought of giving pleasure to Reggie, Reggie stopped and frowned.

"Gertrude looks awfully well and seems enjoying herself tremendously,"

wrote Charlie. "She and Audrey are quite friends, which is convenient, and Denys and I don't feel selfish if we walk behind and let Gertrude, Audrey, and Cecil make the pace in front."

So Gertrude was at Whitecliff, and she had never thought it worth while to tell him she was going to have such a nice change!

She was enjoying herself tremendously! Hitherto she had always made him a sharer in her pleasures by her vivacious descriptions of them.

Who was Cecil?

He looked across the narrow Scotch street, on to the row of small houses opposite him. The morning sunshine was flooding them, while his room lay in shadow. That was like his life. He was in the shadow and other people were in the sunshine--especially this Cecil.

He ate up his breakfast at last and made a good meal of it too, for he was a healthy fellow, and even stale bread and tasty b.u.t.ter go down when you are hungry, and then he got out his cycle and polished it up, for there was a club run on and he was going to ride part of the way out with them, returning early to attend a wedding in the afternoon.

He decided, as he rubbed away at his machine, that he would not be married on a Bank holiday, when his turn came. He would not like his guests to feel bored at losing one of their precious few-and-far-between holidays. Sat.u.r.day was a much more sensible day for a wedding.

Bored or not bored, the wedding party was large and cheerful, and being mostly made up of the chief townsfolk and local gentry who banked at the one and only Bank, Reggie knew most of the guests, and was himself, partly owing to his merry, boyish ways, and partly owing to his modesty and readiness to serve anybody in the smallest things, quite a popular person. He enjoyed the first part of the proceedings very much.

It was a lovely day, with brilliant sunshine and a warm air that seemed as if summer had come to surprise the Spring, and directly the bride had cut the cake there was a general exodus to the garden, where camp chairs and rout seats stood invitingly on the lawn, and arbours and sheltered paths waited for visitors to rest or walk beneath their budding loveliness.

And behind the groups of gay dresses, set off by black coats and light trousers, came white ap.r.o.ned waitresses with cakes and champagne. In vain Reggie, who had missed getting a cup of tea indoors, watched for a tray of tea cups. Champagne and ices, cakes and champagne, champagne and sandwiches. There appeared to be nothing else, and everybody seemed to be drinking champagne like so much water. Everybody, that is, but Reggie and the Scotch minister and his wife.

Except for the desire for a beverage that was not champagne, Reggie did not think a great deal about what he supposed was usual at weddings, till he caught a whisper between two girls whom he was piloting to see some ducklings on the pond at the bottom of the garden.

"Howard can't walk straight already," whispered one with a giggle.

"Isn't it horrid!" answered the other, "Leslie Johns took me round the garden just now, and he told me he had had far more champagne than Howard had, but Howard has a weak head. Howard wanted me to go to the conservatories with him. I'm glad I didn't; I should have been positively ashamed to be seen with him. Why can't such fellows let champagne alone?"

"They might at least know when to stop," sneered the first speaker.

Reggie, leading the way a few paces in front, between close rows of gooseberry bushes, heard every word, and he set his teeth.

The subtle distinction between the man who had taken a quant.i.ty of champagne and shewed no effects, and the man who had only had a little and showed it, did not appeal to him. He felt a vast pity for Howard, though he had not the slightest idea who Howard might be.

He got rid of his charges sooner than he had hoped, for a hint that the bride would soon be down from changing her dress, reached the girls and made them hurry back to the house, and Reggie, suddenly sick at heart with combined remembrances that he and everybody else must probably, in the general gathering of guests to one place, see poor Howard's faltering footsteps, and the thought of Gertrude enjoying herself so much that she could not write for his birthday, made his way slowly and by a circuitous route back to the main party.

He was nearing the house when a turn in the path brought him face to face with a young and handsomely-dressed woman, his own Bank Manager's wife, Mrs. Gray.

"Oh, Reggie!" she said with a sort of gasp, "oh, Reggie, whatever shall I do? Look!"

CHAPTER XII.

MASTER AND MAN.

Reggie looked in the direction indicated. Down a vista of pink and white apple blossom that seemed in its pure loveliness to emphasize the miserableness and shame of sin, came two men, stumbling and laughing and stumbling again and holding each other up. One was Mr.

Gray, the Bank Manager, the other, as Reggie guessed in a moment, was Howard Bushman, of whom he had just heard.

One glance was enough for Reggie, and his eyes came back to his companion. She was white and shivering.

"Oh Reggie!" she said again, "help him, do help him, it will ruin him."

Just behind her was a small summer-house. It came to Reggie all in a moment what to do.

"Go and sit down in there," he said gently, "and when Mr. Gray comes, keep him with you till I get back."

Then he went swiftly to meet that stumbling, laughing pair, and he spoke as gently as he had done to the poor wife.

"Mrs. Gray is sitting down in that summer-house," he said, "I think she wants you. Will you stay with her while I run to the house for something?"

The Bank Manager laughed foolishly.

"He! He! Reggie! Looking after the ladies, as usual! Bring some champagne, my lad, and we'll have a nice little spree on the quiet."

But Reggie had not waited for directions.

He walked swiftly towards the house, but he did not wish to appear hurried or to be on any secret errand, and as he went his thoughts flew hither and thither bewilderingly.