AN INTERVIEWER
The roan mare travelled well that morning, and Miss Panney was at
Cobhurst before the doctor reached his patient's house. To her regret
she found that Mrs. Drane and Miriam had driven to Thorbury. Miss
Drane was upstairs at her work, and Mr. Haverley was somewhere on the
place, but could easily be found. All this she learned from Mike, whom
she saw outside.
"And where is the cook?"
"She's in the kitchen," said Mike.
"A good place for her," replied the old lady; "let her stay there. I will
see Mr. Haverley, and I will see him out here. Go and find him and tell
him I am sitting under that tree."
Ralph arrived, bright-eyed.
"Well, sir," cried the old lady, "and so you have decided to take a wife
to yourself, eh?"
"Indeed I have," said he, with the air of one who had conquered a
continent, and giving Miss Panney's outstretched hand a hearty shake.
"Sit down here," said she, "and tell me all about it. I suppose your soul
is hungering for congratulations."
"Oh yes," he said, laughing; "they are the collateral delights which are
next best to the main happiness."
"Now," said Miss Panney, "I suppose you feel quite certain that Miss
Drane is a young woman who will suit your temperament and your general
intellectual needs?"
"Indeed I do," cried Ralph. "She suits me in every possible way."
"And you have thoroughly investigated her character, and know that she
has the well-balanced mind which will be very much wanted here, and that
she has cut off and swept away all remnants of former attachments to
other young men?"
Ralph twisted himself around impatiently.
"One moment," said Miss Panney, raising her hand. "And you are quite
positive that she would have been willing to marry you if you had not
owned this big farm; and that if you had had a dozen other girls to
choose from, you still would have chosen her; and that you really think
such a small person will appear well by the side of a tall fellow like
you; and you are entirely convinced that you will never look around on
other men's wives and wish that your wife was more like this one or that
one; and that--"
"Miss Panney!" cried Ralph, "do you suppose there was ever a man in the
world who thought about all those things when he really loved a woman?"
"No," said she, "I do not suppose there ever was one, and it was in the
hope that such a one had at last appeared on earth that I put my
questions to you."
"Well, I can answer them all in a bunch," said he; "she is exactly the
wife I want, and nobody in the world would suit me as well. And if there
is any one who does not think so--"
"Stop!" exclaimed Miss Panney; "your face is getting red. Never jump over
a wall when there is a bottomless ditch on the other side. You might miss
the ditch, but it is not likely. You are in love, and when people are
that way, the straight back of a saw is parallel to every line of its
teeth. Don't quarrel, and I will go on with my congratulations."
"Very queer ones they are so far, I am sure," replied Ralph, his face
still flushed a little.
"Oh yes," said Miss Panney, rising, "there are a lot of queer things in
this world, and I may be one of them. Now I will go and see your young
lady. I do not know her very well yet, and I must make her better
acquaintance."
"Miss Panney," said Ralph, quickly, "if you are going to stir her up with
questions such as you put to me, I beg you will not see her."
"Boy, boy," said the old lady, "don't bubble and boil. I have a great
regard for you, and care a great deal more for you than I do for her, and
it is only people that I care a great deal for that I stir up. Go back to
your grindstone, or whatever you were at work at, and do not worry your
mind about your little Cicely. It may be that I shall like her enough to
wish that I had made the match."
When Cicely accidentally met Ralph in the garden, a few hours later, she
said to him that she could not have imagined that Miss Panney was such a
dear old lady.
"Why, Ralph," said the girl, looking up at him with moistened eyes, "she
talked to me so sweetly and gave me such good advice that I actually
cried. And never before, dear Ralph, did good advice make me feel so
happy that I had to cry."
And at this point the two wood doves, who had become regular detectives,
actually pecked at each other in their despair of emulation.
Miss Panney's interview with Cicely had not been very long, because the
old lady was anxious to see La Fleur before the doctor got there, and she
went down into the kitchen, where, although she did not know it, the cook
was expecting her. La Fleur's soul was in a state of turbulent triumph,
but her expression was as soft as a dish of jelly.
Miss Panney sat down on the chair offered her, while the cook
remained standing.
"I came down to ask you," said the old lady, "if you have heard whether
Dr. Tolbridge and his wife have returned. I suppose you will be going
back to them immediately."
"Oh no," said La Fleur, her eyes humbly directed toward the floor as she
spoke, "at least not for a permanency. I shall get the doctor a good
cook. I shall make it my business to see that she is a person fully
capable of filling the position. I have my eyes on such a one. As for me,
I shall stay here with my dear Miss Cicely."
"Good heavens, woman!" exclaimed Miss Panney, "your Miss Cicely isn't
head of this house. What do you mean by talking in that way? Miss
Haverley is mistress of this establishment. Haven't you sense enough to
know that you are in her service, and that Miss Drane and her mother are
merely boarders?"
Not a quiver or a shake was seen on the surface of the gentle jelly.
"Oh, of course," said La Fleur, with her head on one side, and her
smile at its angle of humility, "I meant that I would come to her when
she is settled here as Mrs. Haverley, and her dear mother is living
with her, and when Miss Miriam has gone to finish her education at
whatever seminary is decided on. Then this house will seem like my true
home, and begging your pardon, madam, you cannot imagine how happy I am
going to be."
"You!" exclaimed Miss Panney. "What earthly difference does it make to
anybody whether you are happy or not?"
The jelly seemed to grow softer and more transparent.
"I am only a cook," said La Fleur, "but I can be as happy as persons of
the highest quality, and I understand their natures very well, having
lived with them. And words cannot tell you, madam, how it gladdens my old
heart to think that I had so much to do myself with the good fortunes of
us all, for the Dranes and me are a happy family now, and I hope may long
be so, and hold together. I am sure I did everything that my humble mind
could conceive, to give those two every chance of being together, and to
keep other people away by discussing household matters whenever needed;
for I had made up my mind that Miss Cicely and Mr. Haverley were born for
each other, and if I could help them get each other, I would do it. When
your telegram came, madam, it disturbed me, for I saw that it might spoil
everything, by taking him away just at the time when they had nobody but
each other for company, and when he was beginning to forget that he had
ever been engaged to Miss Bannister, as you told me he was, madam, though
I think you must have been a little mistaken, as we are all apt to be
through thinking that things are as we want them to be. But I couldn't
help feeling thankful that nobody but me was home when the telegram was
brought without any envelope on it, and I had no chance to give it to him
until it was too late to take a train that night; for the trouble the
poor gentleman was in on account of his sister, being sure, of course,
that something had happened to her, put him into such a doleful way that
Miss Cicely gave herself up, heart and soul, to comfort him. And when a
beautiful young woman does that for a young man, their hearts are sure to
run together, like two eggs broken into one bowl. Now that's exactly what
theirs did that night, for being so anxious about them I watched them and
kept Mrs. Drane away. The very next morning when I asked her to go into
the garden and pick some lettuce, and then told him where she was, he
offered himself and was accepted. So you see, madam, that without
boasting, or exalting myself above others, I may really claim that I made
this match that I set my heart on. Although, to be sure--for I don't
take away rightful credit from anybody--some of the credit is yours for
having softened up their hearts with your telegram, just at the very
moment when that sort of softening could be of the most use."
Miss Panney sat up very cold and severe.
"La Fleur," said she, "I thought you were a cook who prided herself on
attending to her business. Since I have been sitting here, listening to
your twaddle, the cat has been making herself comfortable in that pan of
bread dough that you set by the fire to rise."
La Fleur turned around; her impulse was to seize a poker and rush at
the cat. But she stood where she was and infused more benignity into
her smile.
"Poor thing," said she, "she doesn't do any harm. There's a thick
towel over the pan, and I should be ashamed of my yeast if it couldn't
lift a cat."
When Miss Panney went upstairs she laughed. She did not want to laugh,
but she could not help it. She had scarcely driven out of the gate when
she met Dr. Tolbridge.
"A pretty trick you have played me!" he cried.
"Yes, indeed, a very pretty one," replied the old lady, pulling up her
mare. "I thought you knew me better than to think that I would come here
to look into this engagement business with you or anybody else. Or that I
would let you get ahead of me, either. Well, I have got all the points I
want, and more too, and now you can go along, and Mr. Ralph will tell you
that he is the happiest man in the world, and your secretary will tell
you that she is the happiest young woman, and the cook you are going to
lose will vow that she is the happiest old woman, and if you stay until
Mrs. Drane and Miriam come back, the one will tell you that she is the
happiest middle-aged woman, and the other that she is the happiest girl,
and if you give Mike a half dollar, he will tell you that he is the
happiest negro in the world. Click!"
The doctor went on to Cobhurst, where Mrs. Drane and Miriam soon arrived,
and he heard everything that Miss Panney told him he would hear.