LOVE AND MONEY.
"I think," said Charlie, looking across the luncheon table at Mrs.
Brougham. "I think that in about five weeks I could get a Friday to
Monday, and come down if you will let me----"
"Why, certainly," answered Mrs. Brougham, smiling back at the bright
open face opposite her. She really liked him very much, but she shared
something of Conway's feeling about the burglar. The idea that Denys
belonged in any sense to anybody else, needed a good deal of getting
used to.
She had certainly wondered once or twice in the last three years
whether young Henchman, who wrote so regularly to Denys, would ever
become more than a friend.
Charlie's telegram three days ago saying he had passed his final, and
was coming up from Scotland to see about a post and would call at St.
Olave's _en route_, had rather taken away her breath. His call
had been only a short one, but he had asked if he might return the
following day and tell them whether he had obtained the post.
He had duly returned--successful--with a good berth--with
prospects--with life opening out before him, and she had been
surprised at the gravity and anxiety that had shadowed his face even
when he spoke so hopefully of the good things that had come to him.
But the shadow and the gravity were all gone now. It was only his fear
that Denys would not see anything in him to love, that in the three
years in which he had worked, and hoped, and loved her, she might have
met someone else who was more worthy of her, and to whom she had given
the love he so longed to gain. That very evening he had put his fate
to the touch, over the nursery fire, while Denys waited to fetch away
Tony's light, and now he was bubbling over with fun and laughter,
and acting more like a big schoolboy than a sober young man who was
contemplating the cares of matrimony.
It seemed to Mrs. Brougham that the world had gone spinning round her
in an unprecedented manner in the last twenty-four hours, and she was
not sure whether she was on her head or her heels.
Suppose Conway--or Gertrude--why, Reggie Alston wrote to Gertrude as
regularly as the weeks went round!--or Willie----
She gave herself a mental shake and scolded herself for letting
her head be turned with all these happenings. Why, Conway was only
nineteen and Gertrude just eighteen, and what would schoolboy Willie
say if she put him into such a line of possibilities!
She brought her thoughts back to the conversation round the table, and
found that Charlie was still in the full swing of plans.
"Easter will be four or five weeks after that," he was saying, "and I
shall get mother to have you down then, Denys--and Gertrude too," he
looked across at Gertrude--"and it will be so jolly, because I shall
get a whole week, I am sure, and we should have a lovely time. I'm
ever so glad mother has moved to Whitecliff; it won't be nearly such a
journey for you as Saltmarsh was."
Denys had opened her lips to reply, but before she could get out a
word, Gertrude had answered for her.
"That will be very nice," she said eagerly, "I always count to get a
holiday at Easter and I always want to go to the sea, whatever time of
year it is. It's very kind of you to ask me."
Charlie's eyes were on Denys. It was his first invitation to her to
his own home and she guessed that he felt a great happiness in it,
but how could she tell him that while Gertrude always took the Easter
holiday because of the school term, she herself always stayed at home
then, so that her mother should be sure of having one daughter to help
her--and Gertrude had already accepted the invitation!
Before she could frame any answer, a small voice chimed in.
"Maudie wants to go too! Maudie's got a spade and a pail."
There was a laugh all round the table, and Mrs. Brougham said, "My
dear child! Mrs. Henchman can't ask _all_ the girls of St. Olave's!"
Her glance met Denys's, and Denys understood that it said, "Accept,
darling, I shall be all right!"
Denys looked up at Charlie and accepted the invitation with her own
sunny smile. "I feel dreadfully frightened, but I should love to
come," she said. "Oh, I do hope your mother will like me!"
"Like you!" echoed Charlie, and then he went crimson to the roots of
his hair. "_Like you_," he repeated half under his breath.
Easter was a long way off, and Denys thought very little more about
the proposed visit to Mrs. Henchman, and the present was very full and
very interesting. She decided to make some quiet opportunity to speak
to her mother about it, but before this opportunity could occur,
Gertrude took time by the forelock, as she always did when she was set
on a thing.
The two sisters were making marmalade in the kitchen on the morning
following Charlie's departure, when Gertrude brought her guns to the
attack.
"I say, Denys," she began, "it was very civil of Charlie to invite me
to Whitecliff. I saw you opening your mouth to say we could not both
go, so I just whipped in and accepted."
"I don't see how we can both go," said Denys gravely.
"No?" said Gertrude, raising her pretty eyebrows. "I suppose not! but
you had your chance, and went to grandma's for three months and picked
up a good match. Charlie is a very good match and he will be quite
comfortably off, and he is pleasant and good-looking and all that! Oh!
you have done very well for yourself, Denys, and you are not going to
prevent my having my chance."
Denys's cheeks were scarlet. She literally did not know what to say!
Had she made a good match? Had she done very well for herself? Such
a view of the case had never entered her head. She thought of what
Charlie's prospects had been when she first knew him on that long ago
visit to her grandmother.
Who would have said then that Charlie was likely to be comfortably
off? How well she remembered Gwyn Bailey's picnic, when Charlie had
told her that the positions he had hoped for were closed to him,
and that he had no money to enter a profession! She remembered the
hopeless ring of his voice as he had said, "now there's nothing."
No! she had not chosen Charlie for any such reason as Gertrude
suggested.
She was standing with her back to the scullery, and was quite unaware
that behind the half closed door Pattie was quietly peeling potatoes,
but her answer could scarcely have been different if she had known it.
"I wish you would not talk so, Gertrude," she said.
"Very likely," said Gertrude calmly, "people often do not care to hear
what is nevertheless quite true. And I mean to be pretty well off when
I get married, and not to have to scrape and think of every penny, and
wonder whether you can afford a new dress just directly you want it. I
think it's horrid, and I have always thought it horrid."
"I don't," said Denys, "it seems to me that we have been as happy at
home here as any family I know, even though we have had, as you call
it, to scrape and think of pennies, and manage our clothes and work
hard. I've liked it always and if I loved anyone I would not mind
being poor. Mother did not marry anybody rich and _she_ is happy!"
"Ah!" said Gertrude, "it is all very well for you to talk. You have
Love _and_ Money. And that's what I mean to have! So I shall go to
Whitecliff and get to know fresh people and see what turns up!"
"What about----" began Denys, but she did not finish her sentence. She
disliked putting names together, but her thoughts flew off to a Scotch
town, where a boy with a merry face and dark twinkling eyes, was
working his hardest as a bank-clerk. Reggie Alston had been Gertrude's
chum since they were children, and he had never made any secret of the
fact that Gertrude was the one girl in the world in his eyes.
But Gertrude divined what Denys had meant to say, and with a light
laugh she went away to wash her sticky hands. She was not going to
have Reggie Alston thrown at her. Reggie was all very well and Reggie
might mean Love, but Reggie would not mean Money.
Turning to see what had become of Gertrude, Denys caught sight of
Pattie's interested face.
"I've got a young man, Miss Denys," she said importantly, "he's such
a nice, steady young man, Miss, your Mr. Henchman just reminds me
of him, and he's just as fond of me as anything, but"--her face
fell--"he's not very well off, Miss, not at all, and--and--well! it's
rather a pity, as Miss Gertrude's been saying, to marry poor."
"Oh, Pattie!" said Denys earnestly, "don't say that. If you love one
another, you can be so happy even if you are poor. If he is steady and
nice, that is much more important than being rich."
But Pattie's shake of the head was only the echo of Gertrude's words.
"Love _and_ Money. Love _and_ Money." "It's all very well for _you_ to
talk."