MRS. ROGERS SPEAKS HER MIND.
“Hallo, Bob, are you going anywhere in particular?” was Godfrey’s
salutation to Robert Macpherson, when the next afternoon he met him at a
point in the grounds where two paths diverged.
“Just to town for a walk. Are you going anywhere in particular?” was the
reply, to which Godfrey responded:
“Just away from town for a walk.”
And so the two took different roads and sauntered on until, curiously
enough, they met again at the gate of Mrs. Rogers’s cottage, where
Gertie sat alone upon the porch.
“Did you start to come here?” Robert asked, coloring a little, and
Godfrey replied:
“Yes; did you?” while his face wore a look of annoyance, which was in no
wise lessened when ten minutes later Tom Barton also appeared, and
seemed to think it a good joke that they had all met there together and
so found each other out.
“I don’t know what there is to find out,” Godfrey said doggedly, adding,
as he rose to his feet with an impatient shake of his pants: “This is
most too much of a good thing, and I think I’ll go.”
“Please, Mr. Godfrey, don’t,” Gertie said beseechingly, feeling
intuitively that hers was rather a novel position, alone with three
young men, and that Godfrey was in some way a protection.
He came to see her of course, but she was too much a child to think for
a moment that the remembrance of her blue eyes and wavy hair had brought
the others there. They came, no doubt, to get some _sewing_ done, and
she was sorry her auntie was gone, and very glad when at last she saw
her coming round the turn in the road, for now they could give their
orders and go away.
For an instant Mary Rogers stopped short at sight of three town-bred,
fashionable young men, with perfumed locks, and fancy canes, and short
coats, and soft hats, sitting before her door, with Gertie in their
midst, looking so beautiful and pure and innocent, and so unconscious
withal of the admiration she was exciting. Then, the good honest-minded
woman’s resolution was taken, and she went swiftly up the walk and
courtesying to her visitors asked what she could do for them.
“Nothing, nothing, madame, we simply came to call,” Tom Barton replied,
inspecting her curiously, as if she had been a Hottentot, and wondering
how that dainty bit of flesh and blood in the blue dress and pantalets
chanced to belong to her.
“Come to call, did you. I am sorry then I happened to be out. Gertie, I
brought this letter from the office for Mrs. Simmons. Tie on your bonnet
and take it to her directly,” Mary Rogers said, while a dead silence
fell upon the group of young men, each of whom looked at the others
inquiringly.
Gertie was only sorry to leave Godfrey, but reflecting that if she
hurried he might be there when she came back, she hastened away, while
her admirers looked after her until the turn in the road hid her from
view. Then Mrs. Rogers spoke, standing up before them with a flush on
her face and a dignity in her tone and manner which commanded respect
from her audience.
“Young men,” she began, “you came to see Gertie, and I don’t like it,
and won’t allow it either. She is too young to have such ideas put in
her head, even were you honest, which you are not. Not one of you would
marry her, or be willing to be seen with her by your fashionable city
friends, if she were older than she is. You do not look upon her as your
equal, and you only come to amuse yourselves with her because she is
pretty and sweet; but it shall not be. It’s no credit to a girl in
Gertie’s position to have a lot of chaps like you hanging round her and
putting stuff into her head, and I won’t have a breath of harm done to
her future good name by your coming here and talking nonsense, which you
don’t mean, and I put it to your honor to do by my child as you would
have a body do by your sister if she was as young and innocent as
Gertie.”
“By George, you are right! and I give you my hand as a gentleman that by
no act of mine shall Gertie be compromised!” Tom Barton exclaimed, as he
rose to his feet and offered his hand to Gertie’s champion.
Tom’s example was followed by Robert Macpherson, but Godfrey sat still
in his chair. Mrs. Rogers did not mean him, of course. She knew he never
would harm any woman, and he was not going to promise not to see Gertie
Westbrooke, and talk to her, too, as much as he liked. But it was a good
thing to snub that drunken Tom Barton, who was half-intoxicated now, and
he felt like cheering Mrs. Rogers, and meant to stay after the others
were gone, and tell her so. But Robert Macpherson meant to stay, too,
and, after waiting impatiently ten or fifteen minutes, Godfrey arose at
last and said good-afternoon, wondering within himself why “Bob would
stick himself where he was not wanted.”
Robert had business with Mrs. Rogers, and, when alone with her, he began
at once by assuring her that so far as he was concerned she had nothing
to fear for Gertie.
“And you will know you have not,” he continued, “when I tell you that
she is the very image of the only sister I ever had,—the little girl who
died when just Gertie’s age, and of whom I never think without a throb
of pain.”
It was this wonderful likeness, he said, which first attracted him to
Gertie, and made him so desirous for her portrait, as he had none of his
sister. And then he went on to tell how fond he was of his profession as
an artist, and that as there were so many fine views in the vicinity of
Hampstead, he wished to remain there for a time, sketching and studying
the autumnal scenery, and, as he would not of course stay at Schuyler
Hill, he wished to rent a room in some quiet house, and take his meals
at the hotel.
Had Mrs. Rogers such a room, and would she let it to him for a liberal
compensation? Mrs. Rogers was in need of money. Her own health was not
good, and Gertie’s education and music would cost so much that Robert’s
offer was a tempting one, and she considered it for a few moments, and
then said yes, and showed him the large, pleasant room where Abelard
Lyle’s coffin had stood, and where, within a few days, easels, and
pallets, and brushes, and paint were scattered about promiscuously; for
Robert had taken possession, and dubbed the room his “Den,” and was
going to paint “_La Sœur_” from Gertie’s face, and then retouch from his
memory of his sister.
Mary Rogers had struck a powerful blow for Gertie, and hedged her round
with the respect of the young men, who otherwise might have turned her
head as she grew to womanhood, with all her wondrous beauty and
fascinating sweetness, but for a time she felt some misgivings as to the
propriety of having taken Robert Macpherson as a lodger. But when she
saw how quiet and unobtrusive he was, never seeking either herself or
her child, unless he needed them for the sittings, her watchfulness
gradually subsided, and she felt that her home was pleasanter for having
the artist there.
Tom Barton came sometimes to see him, but he never asked for Gertie, and
if by chance he saw her going out or coming in, he treated her with as
much deference as if she had been one of the ladies from Schuyler Hill.
For a few weeks Godfrey was there every day, and sometimes twice a day,
but as she knew him better Mary had no fears of him, and trusted her
darling to him as if he had been a brother.
And Gertie did him good, and always reproved him in her outspoken way,
when she found him relapsing into careless habits of speaking, and kept
him constantly upon his good behavior when he was with her. But she did
not think him a gentleman, and she frankly told him so when in November
he came to say good-by, before going to Andover, where he hoped to
prepare himself for Yale the following year. In a laughing way he
referred to her promise made on the ship, and she replied:
“I heard you say by George, and call your father the Governor, and you
are _not_ a gentleman yet;” but her lip quivered a little, and it was
long ere Godfrey forgot the expression of the blue eyes, which looked at
him so wistfully as Gertie said good-by, and told him so innocently how
much she should miss him.