The girl's arm went from his shoulder to his neck. "Dear Pip, I wish
you'd tell me things sometimes; don't shunt me altogether because I'm
only your sister. Pip, couldn't you tell me? I know you're in trouble;
couldn't I help a bit? Dear old fellow, there's nothing I wouldn't do."
Such an earnest, loving voice it was.
But he freed his neck, and put her away almost roughly.
"Help me!" he said bitterly; "you're the last in the world who would.
Yes, I'm in trouble, perhaps; but it's a trouble you girls and Esther
would do your best to increase."
Meg's eyes filled, but she would not be repulsed. "Try me," she said.
"Is it gambling, Pip? Are you in need of money? Is it debts? Have you
done anything you daren't tell father?" She put her arm round his
shoulder again; but he stood up hastily and pushed her aside.
"It's nothing you can help, Meg. No, it's none of those things. As to
telling you, I'd sooner cut my tongue out! There, I didn't mean to hurt
you," for Meg's lips had trembled; "but oh, it would be impossible for
you to understand. Why, you'd be the first to be against me." He went
over to the door, and picked up his straw hat from the side-table on the
way.
Meg followed him. "Sha'n't you ever tell me?" she said. "Not to-night,
perhaps, as you don't want to, but another time Pip; indeed, you
shouldn't be disappointed in me. Just promise you'll tell me another
time."
"You'll know before the month's out," he said, and laughed half wildly
as he closed the door behind him.
As a matter of fact, a trivial accident happened, and she knew before
the next day was out.
They were having afternoon tea down near the river, and it being Sunday
afternoon and pleasantly cool, the Captain had strolled down with
Esther, and was seated on the grass leisurely examining some letters
that had come by the Saturday afternoon's post and been laid aside.
There was a bill amongst them that he had had no part in making, a
tailor's bill, with what seemed to him superfluous blazers, flannels,
and such things, down. On ordinary occasions he would only have
grumbled moderately and as a matter of duty, for Pip was not
particularly extravagant. But to-day, with his son's recent failure
fresh in his mind, he felt he could be explosive with perfect justice.
So he despatched Peter up to the house to request Pip's immediate
presence. Pip was on the point of going out, and came with a
half-aggrieved, half-aggressive look on his face.
But before there was time for even the preliminaries of warfare, Essie
created a diversion by tumbling out of the moored boat in which she and
Poppet were sitting into the deep, clear water of the river.
Pip's coat was off before any one had even time to scream, he flung it
into Meg's lap right over the teacups, and was swimming out to the
little dark bobbing head in less time than it takes to write it.
Nellie and Poppet had screamed, a strange, strangled cry had broken from
Esther's lips, and the Captain had put his arm round her and said,
"Don't be foolish, she's quite safe," in a sharp voice; but his face was
white under its bronze,--this little saucy-faced baby daughter of his
had crept closer to his heart than any of his other children.
Of course she was quite safe. Here was Pip scrambling up the bank
again, and holding her up in his arms, a little dripping figure in a
white frock and pinafore, one foot quite bare, the other with only the
sock on.
Such gurgling little sobs of fright and relief she gave, such leaps and
shudders of joy and terror, as they carried her up to the house wrapped
in her father's coat.
But now she was safe and unhurt Meg did not follow the rest of the
family into the bedroom with her. Instead she went into her own, and
sank down on the ottoman at the bed foot, white to the lips and
trembling like an old, old woman,--not on Essie's account, the danger
had been so short-lived, but in that breathless moment something
terrible had come to her knowledge.
[Illustration: "A LITTLE DRIPPING FIGURE IN A WHITE FROCK AND
PINAFORE."]
I told you Pip had thrown his coat to her over the tea-things; it had
fallen on her lap with a jerk, and the contents of one pocket had been
precipitated on to the tray.
A tobacco pouch, a fountain pen, and a pipe she had replaced hastily. A
letter had fallen face upwards--even in the confusion she had seen it
was addressed to "Miss Mabelle Jones," in her brother's bold writing.
But the thing that had taken all the colour and life from her face, she
had not put back in the pocket at all, when Pip had taken the coat. She
held it at the present time in her tightly shut, trembling hand, and
every minute the horror in her eyes deepened. Then she said, "Pip!" in a
low, wailing voice, and opened her hand and looked again at the thing.
The tissue paper was still there, and on its whiteness, shining bravely
up into the wild eyes above it, lay a little gold wedding-ring.
There was a step outside her door--Pip's step; he had been to his room
to change to dry things, and was coming back. For a minute he stopped,
and Meg went paler than ever; then he went on, along the passage and
down the staircase.
She could hear him in the lower hall,--could he be going out again? She
started to her feet as the door banged, and went hastily over to the
window. No; he had his old tennis cap on, and was going very slowly
across the grass towards the river, his eyes searching the ground. He
had evidently missed it already, and surmised it had fallen from the
pocket, either as he carried his coat to the house or when he flung it
to Meg. She gave him just time to get down to the water, and then, with
the small, terrible thing tightly held in her hand, she went almost
blindly down the stairs and over the grass after him.
He was kneeling down just beside the tea-things, groping about in the
long grass.
"Have you lost anything?" Meg asked, in a voice that seemed to have no
connection with herself, so faint and far away it sounded.
"Er--only the stem of my pipe," Pip said, a dull flush on his forehead.
He overturned a cup, spilt the milk into the biscuit barrel, and said
something under his breath.
"Is this what you have lost, Pip?"
Meg's voice came in almost a whisper, with a note of great yearning in
it,--oh, if only he would laugh, and give a ridiculously simple
explanation of it all! She hardly dared to look at his face for fear of
what she should find there; her hand, outstretched to him with the gold
circle on its palm, trembled like a leaf.
The scarlet leaped up into his face as if he had been a girl; his very
brow and neck and ears were deeply dyed. He snatched the ring from the
little soft palm, and held it in his own closed hand; his eyes were like
coals on fire.
But Meg faced him quietly; all her courage gathered in her hands now the
need had come.
"You were going to marry the little dressmaker, Philip," she said.
He told her a lie, two or three lies; then he abused her violently for
her interference and prying; then, kneeling as he was, he put both his
arms round her waist and prayed her, if she had any love for him, not to
try to ruin the happiness of his life.
Oh the young, wild, passionate face, the imploring words! It almost
broke Meg's heart to see him. Such a boy again,--oh, surely not a man
now,--not twenty yet, and so headstrong. She felt years and years older
than he--felt almost as if she were his mother, and he a child begging
to play with the fire.
Strange wisdom came to her. She neither railed nor mocked, reproached
nor wept. "And after you are married, what then, Pip?" she said, her
voice quite even. "Fifty pounds a year won't go very far; and I suppose
father will stop even that."
He flung back his head with its crisp waves and curls, the light came
into his eyes.
"I can work," he said, and smiled proudly.
Meg looked merely thoughtful.
"Of course you can," she said; "but of course you will get a bare
nothing at first. And, Pip, excuse me saying it, aren't you rather
selfish? _You_ might be able to rough it; but wouldn't it be very hard
on her? Dear Pip, haven't you too much pride to ask any woman in the
world to be your wife, and not have a penny to offer her or a house to
take her to?"
This was a new view of the case to Pip. It had certainly not occurred
to him it was hard on her; all the sacrifice had seemed on his side, and
he had rejoiced to make it.
"She doesn't mind; she knows I'd have to begin from the beginning," he
said, half sulkily.
"But wouldn't she rather wait? There is every chance of a bright future
before you, as you know, Pip, with all the influence father has. Pip, I
am sure she would rather wait and come to you when you are able to take
her proudly before every one, than marry you now and make you sink into
a fifth-rate clerk for the rest of your life."
She held her head on one side argumentatively; the colour was beginning
to creep back into her cheeks.
As for Pip, he was both surprised and sobered at her moderation. She
had not said a word against the girl he loved, she had not been
contemptuous; she was only laying before him, clearly and rationally,
what he had seen and refused to see himself.
The conversation spread itself out over hours; dusk was beginning to
fall before they turned to go in again. It would take half this book to
narrate everything that was said, but in the end the victory was to Meg.
When it came to the crisis she had been very firm.
Unless he would promise her, before God and before heaven, before their
dead mother and all he held holy, not to marry the girl secretly, she
should immediately inform his father, who, until he was of age, could
make the thing impossible.
If, on the other hand, he would go back to his old life and work with
all his will, as it was only right and just he should do, and if at the
end of two years he was just as much in love with her as ever, and if
there was nothing against her but her lowly position, then she, Meg,
would withdraw her opposition, and even do all she could to help him
forward. She felt safe.
"Think how much better you will know each other by then," she said
cheerfully, as they walked back to the house, both feeling they had been
near a volcano's edge. "Why, how long have you known her, Pip?"
And his answer was the least bit shamefaced.
"Three months--nearly four, at least."
He had the unpleasant feeling of having been conquered; but deep in his
secret heart there was relief; that it had been taken out of his hands.
He had known he was making shipwreck of his life, known he was bringing
bitter trouble upon his family by this hot haste; but Mabel (with two
l's and an e) had been so insistent about an immediate marriage, and he
so deeply in love and fearful of losing her, that he had felt the world
was well lost.
And what Meg said was very true. It would be more manly of him to work
first, and take a wife when he had something to keep her on.
His Spanish castles raised themselves rapidly against the early evening
sky. He would work for two or three years as never man worked yet, and
marry "Mabelle" at the end of that time; then he would take her to
England that she might grow a little more educated and polished (oh,
Pip, Pip!), and then bring her back and present her proudly to Esther
and his father and sisters.
His face looked quite young and bright again by the time they reached
the front door.
"You're a well-meaning little thing, Meg," he said, and kissed her
patronisingly; it was not in nature that he should feel quite proper
gratitude.
Meg drew a series of long breaths of relief as she took off her hat
upstairs and smoothed her hair for tea.
"Oh, _who_ would have brothers?" she asked her image in the glass; but
it only looked back at her and smiled mournfully.
*CHAPTER X.*
*NEEDLES AND PINS.*
"Something attempted, something done."
Snip, snip. Bits of silesia and common red cashmere worked their way to
the edge of the table, and from there dropped to the floor where there
was a glorious litter. Buzz, buzz, bang against the window-panes went
the body and wings of a great "meat" fly. Whirr, whirr, the
sewing-machine fled frantically over the silesia in the places where the
scissors had gone snip, snip. From the trees across the road came the
maddening sound of many locusts; the great fly on the hot window-glass
was half killing itself in the effort to outdo them in noise.
"What ever was she?" sighed Miss Mabelle Jones.
She got up from the machine with a length of grey webbing in her hand,
and looked absently about for a few minutes. She had written the
measurement of a customer's waist on the back of a card of buttons, she
remembered; but the question was, where were the buttons?
"If only he had money of his own now," she said aloud, which had no
apparent connection with waist measurements, but showed that
dressmakers' thoughts occasionally run on other things besides
gatherings, crossway flounces, and boned bodices. Then she found the
card in the leaves of the _Young Ladies' Journal_; and the comment,
"Thirty-five inches, fat old thing," had a connection.
She held the webbing against the tape measure, and cut it off at
thirty-five with quite a vicious little snip.
"Stuck up things," she muttered. "I wouldn't be seen in the plain,
common dresses they wear for anything--no style at all. Why, Miss
Woolcot's at church on Sunday was just fourpence-ha'penny print, and
nothing else."
Then she gasped, and put down the underskirt she was making in a great
hurry. Just outside the window stood Miss Woolcot herself, looking
half-hesitatingly at the fly-spotted card that said "Miss Mabelle Jones,
Costumiere and Modiste." The next minute the knocker sounded.
The father of Miss Mabelle Jones, as mentioned before, earned an honest
livelihood by vending tea and sugar, wax candles, and such--not to speak
of sardines. There were great white letters on his window that asked,
for the benefit of humanity, "Who brought down Sydney prices?" and vivid
red ones that answered boldly and with generous flourishes, "Why, Thomas
Jones of course, the People's Friend. One pound of fine white sugar
given away with every pound of tea."
The shop was at the corner. The little side-door and window had been
given to Miss Jones when she had set up for herself and lengthened her
baptismal name by two letters.
Good Mrs. Jones was cutting up carrots for haricot mutton in the back
kitchen, when her daughter burst in upon her.
"Go and let that young lady in; say I'll be down presently--say I'm
engaged for a bit," she said, pulling off as she spoke the housewifely
apron that protected the front of her mother's dress.
But "Bless us, girl" was Mrs. Jones's rather aggrieved reply; "you
always see folks in that dress, and you always let 'em in yourself.
This 'arryco won't be fit for pa if I go and leave it."
"It isn't ordinary folks--it's a real swell; it's--it's his sister, the
eldest one," said Miss Jones, in great agitation. "There, she's knocked
again; oh, for goodness' sake be quick, ma! The room's all in a mess
too."
Mrs. Jones with a sigh set aside her toothsome "'arryco" and proceeded
to the door.
"Can I see Miss Jones?" asked the pale young lady on the doorstep.
And "She'll be down presently; she's cleanin' herself," answered Mrs.
Jones, leading the way into Mabelle's room, and moving a heap of work
off a chair.
"Sit down, miss, and I'll go and 'urry her up. You can be lookin' at the
fashun plates; they're the latest styles in London"; and she kindly put
a heap of coloured supplements, depicting ladies' fearfully and
wonderfully arrayed, at Meg's elbow.
It was more than a quarter of an hour before Miss Jones made her
appearance, and oh, what a change was there!
She wore a "costume" of bright terra-cotta poplin, with insertion bands
of black lace over pink ribbon at intervals up the skirt and round the
body.
The sleeves were enormous--gigot shape; there were numberless gold and
silver bangles at her wrists, several brooches at her neck, and a
gold-headed pin was stuck through her hair. She had white canvas shoes
with tan bands.
That she was pretty there was no doubt. She had a bright complexion,
scarlet lips, and large heavily lashed brown eyes, very soft and
beautiful; her hair, which was much frizzed, was black and silky.
"I regret that circumstances over which I had no control compelled me to
keep you waiting so long; but I was engaged with some one who was in a
great hurry," she said, which sounded very well, for she had composed it
while she curled her hair.
Only she accented the second half of "circumstances," and deprived her
poor little last word of its rightful "h."
"I have plenty of time," Meg said. "It does not matter at all." Then
she paused, and in the little space of clock-ticking Miss Jones examined
her.
Meg's dress was one of the despised prints--a tiny blue spot on a white
ground, very clean and fresh. There was a band of blue belting at her
waist, and one on her sailor-hat. Her shoes were very neat, black with
shining toe-caps; her gloves fitted without a crease, and were beyond
reproach.
No jewellery at all, as Miss Jones noted, but a little gold-bar brooch
fastening her spotless collar. A lady every inch, though the dress was
home-made and had cost under five shillings.
In a vague, slow way Miss Jones felt the difference and was
dissatisfied. She almost wished she had not put on her best dress, as
it was only early morning.
"You want to see me; is it about a dress?" she asked; for Meg had half
unconsciously picked up one of the magazines and opened it at "The
Latest in Skirts."
"No," said Meg. "It is about my brother Philip I have come." She put
the paper down; and Miss Jones, somewhat overawed by the quiet dignity
of her manner, had small idea of the way her heart was beating.
"By an accident it came to my knowledge that you and my brother were
thinking of an immediate marriage," Meg said; "and I came to have a
quiet talk to you, Miss Jones, because I felt sure you could not know
quite all the unhappiness such a course would bring."
Miss Jones's fine eyelashes were lying on her cheek; her face glowed a
little with sudden colour. Pip had not been to see her the night before,
as Meg knew; he had had an engagement that she took care he should not
break, and now this early morning visit anticipated him.
"He told you?" she asked in a low tone.
"Yes, when I had found out everything," Meg answered. Then she leaned a
little more towards the pretty dressmaker.
"Miss Jones, he is such a boy, poor Philip. Since you love him so much,
how can you bear to spoil his future?"
[Illustration: "'MISS JONES, HE IS SUCH A BOY, POOR PHILIP.'"]
Miss Jones lifted her eyes and bridled a little.
"Of course, I knew you wouldn't think me good enough," she said.
"But," said Meg simply, "how could I think so? I do not know you. What
I mean is, marriage with any one till he is older would be ruin to him.
Surely you must see the unhappiness it would bring upon you both. In
the first place, what could you live upon?"
Miss Jones was silent a minute.
"He could work like other people, I suppose," she answered; "he said he
could, and I wouldn't mind going on sewing too for a bit."
"Oh, he would be willing to work, I know," Meg said; "but what could he
do? It is harder in the present state of things for sons of gentlemen
to find anything to do than labouring men. And he is not half educated
yet. Now, in a few years he will be, I trust, in very different
circumstances, and able to support a wife in comfort."
"I don't mind being rather poor," Miss Jones replied; "and I'm not going
to give him up just because you don't think me fine enough for you."
Meg looked at her steadily. "Of course," she said, "now I have found it
out, there is no possibility of a marriage for two years. My brother is
not of age, and my father naturally will forbid it."
Then she softened again, for the girl's eyes had an unhappy look in
them. "I expect I seem severe to you, Miss Jones; but, indeed, all I am
thinking of is my brother's happiness. If I thought it would truly be
for his good, I would not say a word. And you--you love him too--won't
you show your love by not standing in his light?"
"You seem to think it's as easy to give him up as drop your
'andkerchief," said Miss Jones, in a voice that shook a little. "If
you'd a young man, how d'you think you'd feel if any one came to you and
said as you couldn't make him happy because you wasn't as fine as him?"
"If I had a lover," Meg said softly, "I would not bring unhappiness upon
him for all the world. If I had a lover, and thought my love could only
do him harm, I would never see him again."
"Oh-h-h," said Miss Jones,--"oh-h dear!"
Some tears gathered on her black lashes, and slipped slowly down her
cheeks. They were clear tears too, and the lashes had not changed
colour. Meg remembered Nellie's accusation and blushed.
"W-what is it you want me to do?" the young dressmaker said. "Oh-h, you
are cruel."
Meg felt she was, but kept telling herself she must save Pip. Still,
the girl's tears and large, beautiful eyes touched her tender heart.
She put out her hand impulsively and took the one with needle-marked
fingers; she held it in hers while she talked to her gently and wisely
and firmly. She spoke of Pip's extreme youth, of his penniless
condition, his dependence on the Captain. "My father is a hard man, and
a poor man. I don't think he would ever forgive or recognise my brother
again as long as he lived," she said. "Then again, Philip has been used
to comfort and certain luxuries all his life--to mixing in good society.
He would be miserable, and make you miserable too, to go to such utterly
changed conditions. Not one unequal marriage in fifty is happy--it is
almost impossible they should be; and think how young he is."
"I 'adn't quite made up my mind," Miss Jones said, feeling she needed
some justification. "Yes, I know he'd got the ring--he bought it as
soon as I said yes; and at first I thought as it would be nice to be
married straight off, but often when he wasn't here I used to think as I
wouldn't after all."
"That was very wise of you," said Meg fervently, "very good of you. Oh,
I knew I should only have to represent things to you a little for you to
see how unwise it would be."
Miss Jones looked a little gratified, though still somewhat mournful.
She felt very much like one of the heroines in her favourite _Bow Bells_
or _Family Novelettes_, sacrificing herself in this noble manner for the
good of her lover. But secretly, like Pip, she too felt a trifle
relieved.
All her life she had been used to poverty. Things had been a little
more "genteel" with them since she had been earning money of her own;
but still there was the never-ending struggle of trying to make sixpence
buy a shillingsworth. And, from all accounts, it would only be
intensified by marriage with this handsome youth she had been so taken
with lately. She thought of a certain faithful ironmonger whose heart
had been half broken lately by her coldness to him. He was spoken of
already as a "solid" man--a shilling need only do its legitimate work if
she yielded to his entreaties and married him. Perhaps, after all, it
was unwise for a girl in her position to think of a "gentleman born";
and yet Pip's way of speaking, his nice linen cuffs and gold links, his
well-cut serge suits, had been a great happiness to her.
"Well?" said Meg softly, breaking in at length upon her train of
thought.
"Oh, I s'pose I'll give him up," she answered, somewhat ungraciously.
"How good you are!" Meg said.
"Of course it's 'ard and all that; but I don't want to make him un'appy
and his family set against him--I'd rather sacrifice myself." Miss
Jones cast down her lashes and looked heroic. "I suppose, though, I'll
have a fine piece of work with him when he comes."
Meg had no doubt of it.
"But you will be very firm, won't you?" she said anxiously. "Remember,
you have promised me to leave him quite free--to refuse to be even
engaged for at least two years."
"Oh, I'll manage him, someway; but I quite expect he will want to shoot
either himself or me," was the dressmaker's answer, spoken with a
certain melancholy enjoyment.
Then Meg shook hands with her warmly, affectionately even--she felt she
almost loved her--and took her departure.
"But Pip will never forgive me," she said to herself, as she walked home
again. "Oh, never, never, never!"
*CHAPTER XI.*
*A DAY IN SYDNEY.*
"To Mr. O'Malley in foreign parts."