“And what next?” Brock inquired, the next morning.
“Market,” Nancy replied.
“To spend your guinea?”
“Hush!” she bade him, with a startled glance over her shoulder.
“Oh, you needn’t worry. Barth never gets around till the fifty-ninth
minute. He’ll wait until the last trump sounds, before he orders his
ascension robe, and then he’ll tip Saint Peter to hold the gate open
while he puts it on. But what about the market?”
“I am going with the Lady.”
“To carry the basket?”
“No. I’ll leave that for you,” Nancy retorted.
A sudden iniquitous idea shot athwart Brock’s brain.
“Very well. What time do you start?”
“At ten.”
“Right, oh! I’ll be on hand.”
An equally iniquitous idea entered Nancy’s head.
“Have you ever been to market?” she asked.
“Never.”
“And you want to go?”
“Surely I do.”
“Then we can count on you?”
“Yes. Ten o’clock sharp. If I’m not there, I’ll agree to send a
substitute. But count on me.”
When they went their separate ways from breakfast, Brock sought the town
house of the Duke of Kent; but Nancy went in search of the Lady.
“Were you going to take Tommy to carry the basket?” she asked.
“Yes. He always goes.”
“And will the basket be very huge?”
“Yes.”
“Good!” Nancy said, laughing. “I am glad, for we are going to leave
Tommy at home, to-day, and take Mr. Brock in his place.”
“Nancy!” the Lady remonstrated.
“He insisted upon being invited,” Nancy returned obdurately; “and, if he
does go, he must be made useful. We sha’n’t need both him and Tommy; Mr.
Brock wants to carry the basket.”
Brock, meanwhile, had left the maid standing in the lower hallway and,
two steps at a time, was mounting the ducal staircase which led to
Barth’s room. His fist, descending upon the panels, cleft the
Englishman’s dream in two.
“Oh, yes. What is it? Wait a bit, and I’ll let you in.”
From the other side of the door, muffled sounds betrayed the fact that
Barth was struggling with his dressing-gown and slippers. Then the door
was flung open, and Barth stood on the threshold. He started back in
astonishment, as he caught sight of his unexpected guest.
“Oh. Mr. Brock?”
“Yes. Sorry to have routed you out so early; but I came to bring you
word from Miss Howard and the Lady.”
Barth stepped away from the doorway.
“Come in,” he said hospitably. “Excuse the look of the place, though.”
Brock’s keen eyes swept the room with direct, impersonal curiosity, took
note of the half-unpacked boxes, the piles of books, the heaps of
clothing, then moved back to Barth’s face, where they rested with
mirthful, kindly scrutiny. Then he crossed the room and dropped into a
chair by the window.
“You brought me a message from Miss Howard?” Barth queried tentatively,
after a pause which his companion seemed disinclined to break.
“Not so much a message as a—a suggestion,” Brock answered, with a
hesitation so short as to escape the Englishman’s ear. “Miss Howard and
the Lady are going to market, this morning, and I gathered, from what
Miss Howard said, that she would like you to be on hand.”
“To—market?”
“Yes. She evidently thought you understood it was an engagement. The
only question seemed to be about the hour.”
“Oh. What time do they go?”
“Ten.”
“And now?”
“It is past nine now.”
Barth stepped to the table and glanced at his watch.
“Fifteen past nine,” he read. “There is plenty of time. And you are sure
Miss Howard wanted me?”
“Perfectly,” Brock answered, with brazen mendacity.
“How strange!” observed Mr. Cecil Barth.
“Strange that she should want you? Oh, not at all,” Brock demurred
politely.
“Oh, no. Strange that she shouldn’t have mentioned it before.”
“Didn’t she say anything about it, last night?” Brock inquired.
“No. At least, I don’t remember it.”
“It may have slipped her mind. You had a good deal to talk over, I
believe.”
“What do people do, when they go to market?” Barth queried, with sudden
and intentional inconsequence.
“Buy things.”
“Yes. But what sort of things?”
“Haven’t you been down into the market yet?” Brock asked, as he craned
his neck to watch two girls passing in the street beneath.
“Oh, no. Why should I?”
“Strangers generally do; it is quite one of the sights.”
“Do you mind if I begin dressing, Mr. Brock? What sort of sights?”
“Oh, cabbages, and pigs, and country things like that.”
Barth’s brows knotted, partly over his dressing, partly over his effort
to grasp the situation.
“And is Miss Howard going down to—to look at those things?” he
inquired.
“No, man; of course not. She is going down with the Lady to buy them.”
“To—buy—a pig?” Barth spoke in three detached sentences.
Brock smothered his merriment according to the best of his ability.
“The Lady will do the buying. Miss Howard goes to look on.”
“And does she expect me to look on, too?”
“Certainly.”
Barth sat with his shoe horn hanging loosely in his hand.
“But, Mr. Brock, I don’t know a bad pig from a good one,” he protested
hastily.
“Oh, it’s quite easy to tell. Just pinch him a bit about the ribs. If he
is fat and squeals nicely, he’ll go. But, as I understand it, you aren’t
to do the marketing. You are expected to carry the basket for them.”
Barth looked up from his second shoe.
“The basket?”
“Yes. Women here take their baskets with them.”
“And get them filled?”
“Surely. Then they bring them home.”
Barth finished the tying of his shoestrings. Then he rose and picked up
his collar.
“Oh, really!” he remonstrated, as he fumbled with the buttonholes. “Miss
Howard can’t be expecting that I am going to bring a pig home in my
arms.”
Brock rose.
“It is never safe to predict what a pretty woman will expect next,” he
said oracularly. “I usually make a point of being ready for almost
anything. As far as Miss Howard is concerned, I’d rather carry a pig for
her than a bunch of roses for some women.”
This time, Brock’s words rang true. Moreover, they dismissed any doubts
lingering in the mind of his companion.
“Oh, rather!” he assented, with some enthusiasm.
A mocking light came into Brock’s clear eyes.
“I am glad you agree with me. You knew her before I did, I believe.”
“Yes. At Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré. Miss Howard was very good to me, when I
was there.” Over the top of his half-fastened collar, Barth spoke with
simple dignity.
Brock liked the tone.
“I can imagine it, Barth,” he answered, with a sudden wave of liking for
the loyal little Englishman before him. “Both St. Jacques and I would
gladly have offered up our ankles at the shrine of Sainte Anne, for such
a chance as yours.”
“What kind of a chance do you mean?”
“Chance to be coddled by Miss Howard, of course.”
Barth slid the string of his glasses over his head, put on his glasses
and looked steadily up at Brock.
“It was a chance,” he assented gravely. “Chance and the handiwork of the
Good Sainte Anne. It might have meant a good deal to me. Instead, I
threw it all away by my own dulness; and now, instead of having the
advantage of a three-weeks’ acquaintance, I have to start at the very
beginning once more. If, as you are hinting, you and Mr. St. Jacques and
I are on a strife to win the regard of Miss Howard, you and Mr. St.
Jacques have already distanced me in the race.”
Brock laughed; but his eyes had grown surprisingly gentle. In all his
easy-going life, a life when friends and their confidences had been his
for the asking, few things had touched him as did this direct, simple
expression of trust on the part of Mr. Cecil Barth. Contrary to his
custom, he met confidence with confidence.
“You’re a good fellow, Barth,” he said heartily. “I am a little out of
the running, myself. I’d like to wish you success, if I could; but St.
Jacques is the older friend.” Then, relenting, he recurred to the object
of his call. “Now see here, Barth,” he added; “you needn’t feel obliged
to go to market. There may be some joke in the matter. Miss Howard
laughed, when she was talking about it. Don’t go, if you don’t wish to.
They can take Tommy.”
“Oh, but I’d like to go,” Barth interposed hurriedly, as he looked at
his watch. “It is past ten now, Mr. Brock. May I ask you to excuse me?”
And, without waiting for a final word from Brock, he turned and went
dashing down the staircase at a speed which boded little good for an
invalid ankle.
Ten o’clock, that sunny morning, found Champlain Market the centre of an
eager, jostling, basket-laden throng. As a rule, the Lady sought her
purchases at the market just outside the Saint John Gate. To-day,
however, she had elected to go to the Lower Town, and, true to an old
engagement, Nancy had elected to go with her. It was a novel experience
for the girl, and she wandered up and down at the heels of the Lady, now
staring at the stout old habitant women who, since early dawn, had sat
wedged into their packed carts, knitting away as comfortably as if they
had been surrounded by sofa pillows rather than by pumpkins; at the
round-faced, bundled-up children who guarded the stalls of belated
flowers, of blue-yarn socks and of baskets of every size; at the groups
of men, gathered here and there in the throng, offering to their
possible customers the choice between squealing pigs and squawking fowls
which one and all seemed to be resenting the liberties taken with their
breast-bones. Back of the old stone market building, the carts were
drawn up in long lines; and the board platforms between were heaped with
cabbages and paved with crates. At the north, the little gray spire of
Notre Dame des Victoires guarded the square where, for over two hundred
years, it had done honor to the name of Our Lady and to the memory of
successive victories won, by her protecting care, over invading foes.
Above it all, the black-faced cannon poked its sullen nose over the wall
of the King’s Bastion where, a scarlet patch against the sky, there
fluttered the threefold cross of the Union Jack.
And still Brock failed to appear.
“Just like a man!” Nancy said impatiently, as the half-hour struck. “You
are sure Mary understood the message?”
“She never forgets. I was sorry not to wait, Nancy; but we should have
lost our chance to get anything good. We are late, as it is.”
“Late! What time does the market open?”
“By five o’clock. These people have been coming in, all night long. By
five in the morning, the place is full of customers. It is worth the
seeing then.”
Nancy shivered.
“Uh! Not at this season of the year. I am not fond of the clammy dawn;
and, down here by the river, it must be deathly. But, in the
meanwhile,—” Again she glanced towards the corner of Little Champlain
Street.
The Lady laughed.
“It is no use, Nancy. You are caught in your own trap, and now you must
either go home and send Tommy to me, or else help me to carry home the
basket.”
“I don’t mind the basket, though I confess I wish I hadn’t urged you to
bring your very largest one. But I am disappointed in Mr. Brock. I
thought he possessed more invention than this. He made me believe he had
some mischief lurking in his brain; and it is very flat and boyish
merely to promise to appear and then not to materialize.”
“He may have been prevented, at the last minute.”
“Then,” Nancy responded grimly; “he’d much better have kept to the
letter of his promise and sent a substitute.”
She was still wandering aimlessly to and fro among the crowd, now
jostled by a packed basket on the arm of a sturdy habitant, now whacked
on the ankle by a hen dangling limply, head downward, from the hand of
the habitant’s wife, now pausing to bargain for a bunch of pale violet
sweet peas or a tiny replica of one of the melon-shaped baskets so
characteristic of the town. All at once, she turned to the Lady.
“If there isn’t Mr. Barth!” she exclaimed, lapsing, in her surprise,
into the unmistakable vernacular of The States.
The Lady was deeply absorbed in her final purchase of the day, which, as
it chanced, was a piglet for the morrow’s dinner. Engrossed in the
relative merits of a whole series of piglets of varying dimension, she
was deaf to Nancy’s words. Left to herself, the girl met Barth with an
eager smile.
“Is it peace, or war?” she asked merrily, as she gave him her hand,
sweet peas and all.
“Peace, of course. Are the flowers a token of the treaty?”
“Do you want them?”
“Oh, rather!” And Barth pulled off his glove to fasten them into the
lapel of his dark blue coat. “I am so sorry to be late, Miss Howard; but
Mr. Brock stopped a little, to talk.”
“You have seen Mr. Brock, this morning?”
“Oh, yes. He was in my room.”
Nancy’s face betrayed her surprise.
“And did he say anything about market?”
“He told me you were coming at ten. I meant to be on hand; but he
delayed me, and, when I finally started, I missed my way and came out
over by the custom house. I must have taken a wrong turning.”
“Perhaps. But where is Mr. Brock?”
“I think he went to his office.”
There was a little pause.
“Jolly crowd, this,” Barth commented at length. “Where is the Lady?”
“Over there.” Nancy pointed to the Lady, still bending over the crate of
piglets.
“Oh. And those are the pigs? Oughtn’t we to go across and help her?”
Nancy laughed.
“I am afraid I’m not a judge of them,” she demurred.
Barth’s voice dropped confidentially.
“Neither am I. Still, as long as I came to help her, I think it would be
rather decent to see if I can do anything about it, now I am here.”
“Oh,” Nancy said blankly. “Was the Lady expecting you?”
Barth’s gratified smile completed her mystification.
“Oh, rather! I wouldn’t have felt at liberty without, you know. That’s
what the Lady is for.”
A moment later, the Lady started in surprise. Stick and gloves in hand
and a frown of deep consideration on his boyish brow, Barth suddenly
knelt down at her side and shut his slim fingers upon the flank of the
nearest piglet, which gave vocal expression to its displeasure.
“Oh. Good morning,” he added, not to the piglet, however, but to the
Lady. “I think you will find this little chap quite satisfactory.”
For an instant, Nancy had difficulty in repressing her mirth. Then, from
the Lady’s manifest astonishment at Barth’s appearing, from Barth’s own
manner, and from her memory of Brock’s final words, she saw the hand of
the young Canadian in the situation. This was the substitute whom Brock
had promised. She determined to put her theory to the test.
“Mr. Brock was very good to act as our messenger,” she suggested
craftily.
“Rather! He is a good fellow, anyway,” Barth answered, as he rose and
dusted off his knees. “I like the English Canadians, myself. They are a
grade above the French ones. But, do you know, Mr. Brock only just saved
me from disgracing myself again. I was so absorbed in—in the other
things we talked over, last night, that I quite forgot about the trip to
market, this morning.”
For a minute, as she looked into Barth’s animated face, Nancy waxed hot
with indignation over Brock’s childish trick. She half resolved to warn
the young Englishman against the species of hazing which he was called
upon to undergo. Then she held her peace. Her warnings would count for
more, if she levelled them at Brock, rather than at Brock’s victim. Even
her limited experience of Barth had assured her that, in certain
directions, his understanding was finite. It would never occur to his
insular mind that his very naïveté would make him a more tempting prey
to the jovial young Canadian.
“Never mind, as long as you came at all, Mr. Barth,” she replied
lightly. “It would have been a pity for you to have missed the sight. We
couldn’t very well wait for you, because the Lady had to come on
business, not pleasure.”
“And is this all?” Barth said, as the Lady turned from the piglet.
“Where is the basket?”
“There.” And Nancy, as she pointed to the heaped assortment of garden
stuffs, suddenly resolved to put Barth’s chivalry to the test.
The test was weighty, unlovely of outline and unsavory of odor;
nevertheless, the young Britisher did not shrink. Without a glance
around him, Mr. Cecil Barth bent over the great basket and passed its
handles over the curve of his elbow.
“Shall we go home by the steps?” he asked. “Or do you take the lift?”
Then the Lady interfered.
“I go to the nearest cab-stand,” she replied promptly. “I find I must
dash over to the other market as fast as I can go. There are cabs just
around the corner, Mr. Barth, if you are willing to put my basket into
one. Then, if you and Miss Howard will excuse me for deserting the
expedition, I will leave you to walk home together.”
And Nancy’s answering smile assured the Lady of her full forgiveness.