CONFIDENCES
Thus it came about that Jack Rattenbury visited Bath, and the
spring chickens arrived in the kitchen of the establishment of Mrs.
Tomkin-Jones.
After the meeting at the exit from Sydney Gardens, and when Jack had
departed, Winefred remained standing where he had left her, motionless,
looking before her, but seeing nothing.
What fiend had possessed her, that she should have struck at him so
cruelly?
At the moment she had not intended to hurt, but the words had come to
her lips before she had thought what to say, and had been launched
unconsidered.
She was roused by her father addressing her.
'Really, my dear, you were――were rather rude. You should not be that,
least of all to an inferior. It angers an equal, it cuts an inferior.'
'Father, he has occasioned mother and me much wretchedness.'
'How?'
'By causing cruel, untrue things to be said of us. He has made our
lives miserable.'
'Not――not about――ahem! Has he insinuated――――'
'I need not tell you about what, further than that it concerns money.'
'Oh, money! What about that?'
'If you desire to know more, it is that he said, or perhaps it is more
true to say he has caused it to be said, that mother is well off and
able to send me here, because she stole money from his father; but I
know better, for one reason, because she could not do a wrong thing;
and next because the money came from you. But first of all because
mother _could_ not do it. The money was from you, was it not, father?'
'Certainly it was. I sent to her money repeatedly, and of late,
liberally.'
'There now!' in a tone of triumph. 'Oh, if you would speak that out
before all Axmouth! Oh, how happy you would make my mother!'
'That――that is not possible.'
'Why not?'
'There are reasons. They are weighty. I cannot fully explain. For one,
I am here taking the waters.'
'Then let me call him back. Say the words before Jack. He is not a bad
fellow, honest and true, and he will believe you and tell the truth to
every one.'
'For Heaven's sake, no!'
'Why not? It is the truth.' She paused. 'Are you ashamed of me as your
daughter?'
'No, a thousand times no; and since you have been new fitted out by
Madame Delmarc and Miss――Miss――I forget the name――ten thousand times
no.'
'Then why? Are you ashamed of my mother?'
He groped in his pocket with twitching fingers, but could find neither
latchkey nor pencil to put to his tongue or lips.
'I――I――there are matters, my dear, beyond your comprehension. A little
later. Have patience, Winefred; when you are a bit older, have more
knowledge of the world――――'
'You will make it up with mother?'
'I――I will think about it.'
Her face, that had kindled with hope, was again clouded.
It was a humiliation to her, that she felt poignantly, to be recognised
by her father, and at the same time to have her mother ignored or
treated as dead. She had caught the words of Sir Barnaby and her
father's reply, and they had been as drops of flaming phosphorus
falling on her heart. She would have turned, cried out that her mother
lived, and was the noblest and purest of women, but that her sound
reason assured her such an action would be fatal to her ambition. She
must be patient. She must endure a little longer. The moment had not
come. She must first weave herself round her father's heart before she
could draw him in the direction she proposed.
She now greatly regretted her rudeness to Jack on other grounds than
that she had committed an offence. She would have liked to send back a
message to her mother, together with a present, to assure her that she
was not forgotten. But she could not ask a favour of one whom she had
insulted.
Had the lad deserved the treatment meted out to him? What fault of his
was it that he was disappointed of his expectations on the death of
his father, and that he had been forced to sell the cottage? He had
done this so as honourably to pay his father's debts. Was he really
responsible for the stories that circulated anent her mother? Had he
not assured her that he did not believe in her mother's guilt? Why,
then, was the young man to be snarled at? Her thoughts that had started
with her mother and father now circled around Jack.
She was turning the parcel he had given to her in her hand without
considering it. Now she looked at it and found that it comprised a
small box, tied up in paper and sealed. Doubtless it contained a letter.
Winefred walked back beside her father to the square without uttering
another word. Neither did Mr. Holwood speak. He, likewise, was
engrossed in thoughts, and thoughts set with prickles.
At the door they parted.
'I shall give myself the pleasure of calling for you again to-morrow,'
said he. 'Your new equipment I must tell Mrs. Jones is eminently
becoming.'
She went to her room, and when she had removed her bonnet and mantle,
she seated herself at the window, and unknotted the string that bound
the parcel. A hundred, even fifty, years ago, no woman ever dreamed of
cutting a string; she laboriously unknotted it, then did it up in a tag
and laid it aside for further use.
A small square cardboard case was disclosed that contained cotton wool,
bedded in which were a pair of imitation pearl drop earrings. Folded
about the case was a letter. This she proceeded eagerly to read,――it
was from Mrs. Jose:
'MY DEAR WINEFRED,――Your good mother and I hope you are well, as
it leaves me. I send you two pretty eardrops that I had when I was
married. I have grown old and fat and ugly, and shall never wear them
no more. They suit young and pretty faces, so take them, and when you
wear them think of your mother's and my hearts that hang on you. I
send them to you by Jack Rattenbury, who has found a place at last,
and decent wages, so he tells me, enough to keep him in bread and
cheese. He is a good lad and upright, and I am pleased to know it.
Your mother is tolerably well. My brindled half-Jersey has dropped her
calf, and we have had trouble that way before. I am going to look out
for a goat to run with the cows. That is a good thing where
they take to dropping their calves. Good-bye, I'm terrible short of
breath with writing so much.――Your affectionate friend and well-wisher,
ELIZA JOSE.
'_M.P._――Your mother is a curious customer. She was all agog for you to
go to Bath, and now she is in a sort of raging fever and ague to boot
because you are away. 'Tis exactly like a cow when they've took away
her calf.'
Winefred sat in the window turning over the earrings, but thinking
rather of the 'M.P.' than of anything else, when there came a rap at
her door, and, without awaiting a response, Jesse entered.
'What have you there?' she asked at once, her feminine eye lighting on
the bit of cheap jewellery.
'It is a present from dear Mrs. Jose.'
'Mercy on us! you cannot wear such absurd fandangles.'
'I would not offend Mrs. Jose for all the world, and she says such
pretty things about them.'
'She is a darling, and our cousin, though mamma is too gorgeous a
personage to admit it. But Nebuchadnezzar's image had feet of clay and
the awful erection of the Tomkin-Jones family has common soil at the
bottom of it. But those ear-pendants are ridiculous.'
'I shall wear them when I go back to Axmouth.'
'As you will, but mother will never suffer them here. I may as well
take this opportunity to speak to you about our family. Shall I sit
down, Winnie? Well, mamma's great delight is blowing wind-bags, and we
prick them, Sylvana out of malice, I out of mischief. But no sooner
have we shrivelled one up than we find her puffing out another. After
all, it hurts no one and it amuses her. Nobody is deceived. No one
believes in her stories. They are like wax apricots. They look very
well, but bite and you find they are emptiness and your mouth is full
of beeswax. Mother is concerned because no street or square in Bath is
named after papa. But no one cares about him, or remembers him now that
he is dead. Moreover, in Bath people come and go, some for a season,
some for two. He was a doctor, an estimable man, and, as doctors go, no
worse than his fellows. He once put the Prince Regent's insides right
with a pill, that is all; and out of that pill mamma has blown up a
balloon. He did not make a fortune, or we should be better off, living
in the square and not hanging on to it. But with all her grand talk
mother is a good woman, and such as know her intimately learn how much
better she is than all the flummery with which she surrounds herself.
Sylvana and I do our utmost to tear down her piles of pretence, but
it is lost labour. She is like Jack the chimneysweep on May Day, who
dances under an extinguisher of greens and sham flowers. Unhappily,
with him it pays, with mamma it fails. Take these eardrops and put them
away till you return to Jose-land. I want to talk to you about Frank
Wardroper. Do you care for him?'
'I――no! How should I?'
Winefred looked genuinely surprised.
'But,' said Jesse, 'he has been paying you marked attention.'
'He has been civil. He chose my hat and gowns.'
'That was it. If anything could rivet his affections it would be that.
You are sure you do not feel for him more than ordinary interest?'
'He amuses me; that is all.'
'Because,' said Jesse, colouring, 'at one time he was fond of me. He
was very much about me, and made a good deal of me. But when you came,
then mamma began to throw you at his head.'
'But why――if she knew that you liked him?'
'My dear, with her, all her geese are swans except her daughters, who
are little common ducks. It has never occurred to her that he could
fancy me. You see,' said Jesse, colouring deeper, 'no one could suit
Frank better than I, because I really do not know or care anything
about dress, so that it would be an eternal joy and interest to him to
keep changing my gowns and bonnets and mantillas and all the rest.'
'I will not interfere between you, set your mind at rest thereon,' said
Winefred, laughing.
'Do you care for any one else?'
'I!' Winefred now gasped. 'I――I know no one. I――of course not. How
could you ask such a question?' Then, hurriedly, as though to cut short
further catechising, 'I know what I will do. I will make you a present
of an entirely new and fashionable suit of clothes, hat or bonnet,
gown, everything, and Mr. Wardroper shall select them for you.'
'O my dearest!' exclaimed Jesse, and threw herself on the neck of
Winefred. 'You could not have thought of anything better, of anything
more calculated to secure him. One word in return for this kindness: Be
on your guard against Sylvana.'