MEG
It was inevitable as the refrain of a _rondeau_ that when Jan said
"that's Meg" little Fay should demand "What nelse?"
Now there was a good deal of "nelse" about Meg, and she requires some
explanation, going back several years.
Like most Scots, Anthony Ross had been faithful to his relations whether
he felt affection for them or not; sometimes even when they had not a
thought in common with him and he rather disliked them than otherwise.
And this was so in the case of one Amelia Ross, his first cousin, who
was head-mistress of a flourishing and well-established school for
"young ladies," in the Regent's Park district.
She had been a head-mistress for many years, and was well over fifty
when she married a meek, small, nothingly man who had what Thackeray
calls "a little patent place." And it appeared that she added the
husband to the school in much the same spirit as she would have
increased the number of chairs in her dining-room, and with no more
appreciable result in her life. On her marriage she became Mrs.
Ross-Morton, and Mr. Morton went in and out of the front door,
breakfasted and dined at Ribston Hall, caught his bus at the North Gate
and went daily to his meek little work. It is presumed that he lived on
terms of affectionate intimacy with his wife, but no one who saw them
together could have gathered this.
Now Anthony Ross disliked his cousin Amelia. He detested her school,
which he considered was one of the worst examples of a bad old period.
He suspected her of being hard and grasping, he knew she was dull, and
her husband bored him--not to tears, but to profanity. Yet since she was
his cousin and a hard-working, upright woman, and since they had played
together as children in Scotland and her father and mother had been kind
to him then, he could never bring himself to drop Amelia. Not for worlds
would he have allowed Jan or Fay to go to her school, but he did allow
them, or rather he humbly entreated them, to visit it occasionally when
invited to some function or other. Jan's education after her mother's
death had been the thinnest scrape sandwiched between many household
cares and much attendance upon her father's whims. Fay was allowed
classes and visiting governesses, but their father could never bring
himself to spare either of them to the regular discipline of school, and
Cousin Amelia bewailed the desultory training of Anthony's children.
In 1905, Jan and Fay had been to a party at Ribston Hall: tea in the
garden followed by a pastoral play. Anthony was sitting in the balcony,
smoking, when the girls came back. He saw their hansom and ran
downstairs to meet them, as he always did. They were a family who went
in for affectionate greetings.
"Daddie," cried Fay, seizing her father by the arm, "one of the seven
wonders of the world has happened. We have found an interesting person
at Ribston Hall."
Jan took the other arm. "We can't possibly tell you all about it under
an hour, so we'd better go and sit in the balcony." And they gently
propelled him towards the staircase.
"Not if you're going to discuss Cousin Amelia," Anthony protested. "You
have carrying voices, both of you."
"Cousin Amelia is only incidental," Jan said, when they were all three
seated in the balcony. "The main theme is concerned with a queer little
pixie creature called Meg Morton. She's a pupil-governess, and she's
sixteen and a half--just the same age as Fay."
"She doesn't reach up to Jan's elbow," Fay added, "and she chaperons the
girls for music and singing, and sits in the drawing-class because the
master can't be quite seventy yet."
"She's the wee-est thing you ever saw, and they dress her in Cousin
Amelia's discarded Sunday frocks."
"That's impossible," Anthony interrupted. "Amelia is so massive and
square; if the girl's so small she'd look like 'the Marchioness.'"
"She does, she does!" Jan cried delightedly. "Of course the garments are
'made down,' but in the most elderly way possible. Daddie, can you
picture a Botticelli angel of sixteen, with masses of Titian-red hair,
clad in a queer plush garment once worn by Cousin Amelia, that retains
all its ancient frumpiness of line. And it's not only her appearance
that's so quaint, _she_ is quaint inside."
"We were attracted by her hair," Fay went on "(You'll go down like a
ninepin before that hair), and we got her in a corner and hemmed her in
and declared it was her duty to attend to us because we were strangers
and shy, and in three minutes we were friends. Sixteen, Daddie! And a
governess-pupil in Cousin Amelia's school. She's a niece of the little
husband, and Cousin Amelia is preening herself like anything because she
takes her for nothing and makes her work like ten people."
"Did the little girl say so?"
"Of course not," Jan answered indignantly, "but Cousin Amelia did. Oh,
how thankful I am she is _your_ cousin, dear, and once-removed from us!"
"How many generations will it take to remove her altogether?" Fay asked.
"However," she added, "if we can have the pixie out and give her a good
time I shan't mind the relationship so much. We _must_ do something,
Daddie. What shall it be?"
Anthony Ross smoked thoughtfully and said very little. Perhaps he did
not even listen with marked attention, because he was enjoying his
girls. Just to see them healthy and happy; to know that they were
naturally kind and gay; to hear them frank and eager and
loquacious--sometimes gave him a sensation of almost physical pleasure.
He was like an idler basking in the sun, conscious of nothing but just
the warmth and comfort of it.
Whatever those girls wanted they always got. Anthony's diplomacy was
requisitioned and was, as usual, successful; for, in spite of her
disapproval, Mrs. Ross-Morton could never resist her cousin's charm.
This time the result was that one Saturday afternoon in the middle of
June little Meg Morton, bearing a battered leather portmanteau and clad
in the most-recently-converted plush abomination, appeared at the tall
house in St. George's Square to stay over the week-end.
It was the mid-term holiday, and from the first moment to the last the
visit was one almost delirious orgy of pleasure to the little
pupil-governess.
It was also a revelation.
It would be hard to conceive of anything odder than the appearance of
Meg Morton at this time. She just touched five feet in height, and was
very slenderly and delicately made, with absurd, tiny hands and feet.
Yet there was a finish about the thin little body that proclaimed her
fully grown. Her eyes, with their thick, dark lashes, looked overlarge
in the pale little pointed face; strange eyes and sombre, with big,
bright pupil, and curious dark-blue iris flecked with brown. Her
features were regular, and her mouth would have been pretty had the lips
not lacked colour. As it was, all the colour about Meg seemed
concentrated in her hair; red as a flame and rippled as a river under a
fresh breeze. There was so much of it, too, the little head seemed bowed
in apology beneath its weight.
Yet for the time being Meg forgot to be apologetic about her hair, for
Anthony and his girls frankly admired it.
These adorable, kind, amusing people actually admired it, and said so.
Hitherto Meg's experience had been that it was a thing to be slurred
over, like a deformity. If mentioned, it was to be deprecated. In the
strictly Evangelical circles where hitherto her lot had been cast, they
even tried vainly to explain it away.
She had, of course, heard of artists, but she never expected to meet
any. That sort of thing lay outside the lives of those who had to make
their living as quickly as possible in beaten tracks; tracks so
well-beaten, in fact, that all the flowers had been trodden underfoot
and exterminated.
Meg, at sixteen, had received so little from life that her expectations
were of the humblest. And as she stood before the glass in a pretty
bedroom, fastening her one evening dress (of shiny black silk that
crackled, made with the narrow V in front affected by Mrs. Ross-Morton),
preparatory to going to the play for the first time in her life, she
could have exclaimed, like the little old woman of the story, "This be
never I!"
Anthony Ross was wholly surprising to Meg.
This handsome, merry gentleman with thick, brown hair as crinkly as her
own; who was domineered over and palpably adored by these two, to her,
equally amazing girls--seemed so very, very young to be anybody's
father.
He frankly owned to enjoying things.
Now, according to Meg's experience, grown-up people--elderly
people--seldom enjoyed anything; above all, never alluded to their
enjoyment.
Life was a thing to be endured with fortitude, its sorrows borne with
Christian resignation; its joys, if there were any joys, discreetly
slurred over. Joys were insidious, dangerous things that might lead to
the leaving undone of obvious duties. To seek joy and insure its being
shared by others, bravely and honestly believing it to be an excellent
thing, was to Meg an entirely unknown frame of mind.
After the play, in Meg's room the three girls were brushing their hair
together; to be accurate, Jan was brushing Fay's and Meg admiring the
process.
"Have you any sisters?" Jan asked. She was always interested in people's
relations.
"No," said Meg. "There are, mercifully, only three of us, my two
brothers and me. If there had been any more I don't know what my poor
little Papa would have done."
"Why do you call him your 'poor little papa'?" Fay asked curiously.
"Because he is poor--dreadfully--and little, and very melancholy. He
suffers so from depression."
"Why?" asked the downright Jan.
"Partly because he has indigestion, _constant_ indigestion, and then
there's us, and boys are so expensive, they will grow so. It upsets him
dreadfully."
"But they can't help growing," Fay objected.
"It wouldn't matter so much if they didn't both do it at once. But you
see, there's only a year between them, and they're just about the same
size. If only one had been smaller, he could have worn the outgrown
things. As it is, it's always new clothes for both of them. Papa's are
no sort of use, and even the cheapest suits cost a lot, and boots are
perfectly awful."
Meg looked so serious that Fay and Jan, who were like the lilies of the
field, and expected new and pretty frocks at reasonable intervals as a
matter of course, looked serious too; for the first time confronted by a
problem whose possibility they had never even considered before.
"He must be pleased with you," Jan said, encouragingly. "_You're_ not
too big."
"Yes, but then I'm not a boy. Papa's clothes would have made down for me
beautifully if I'd been a boy; as it is, they're no use." Meg sighed,
then added more cheerfully. "But I cost less in other ways, and several
relations send old clothes to me. They are never too small."
"Do you like the relations' clothes?" Fay asked.
"Of course not," said Meg, simply. "They are generally hideous; but,
after all, they cover me and save expense."
The spoiled daughters of Anthony Ross gazed at Meg with horror-stricken
eyes. To them this seemed a most tragic state of things.
"Do they all," Fay asked timidly, "wear such ... rich materials--like
Cousin Amelia?"
"They're fond of plush, as a rule, but there's velveteen as well, and
sometimes a cloth dress. One was mustard-coloured, and embittered my
life for a whole year."
Jan suddenly ceased to brush Fay's hair and went and sat on the bed
beside Meg and put her arm round her. Fay's pretty face, framed in
fluffy masses of fair hair, was solemn in excess of sympathy.
"I shouldn't care a bit if only the boys were through Sandhurst and
safely into the Indian Army--but I do hate them having to go without
nearly everything. Trevor's a King's Cadet, but they wouldn't give us
two cadetships ... Still," she added, more cheerfully, "it's cheaper
than anything else for a soldier's son."
"Is your father a soldier?" asked Jan.
"Oh, yes, a major in the Westshires; but he had to leave the Army
because of his health, and his pension is very small, and mother had so
little money. I sometimes think it killed her trying to do everything on
nothing."
"Were you quite small when she died?" Fay asked in a sympathetic
whisper.
"Oh, no; I was nearly twelve, and quite as big as I am now. Then I kept
house while the boys were at Bedford, but when they went to Sandhurst
poor little Papa thought I'd better get some education, too, and Uncle
John's wife offered to take me for nothing, so here I am. HERE, it's too
wonderful. Who could have dreamed that Ribston Hall would lead to this?"
And Meg snuggled down in Jan's kind embrace, her red hair spread around
her like a veil.
"Are some of the richly-dressed relations nice?" Jan asked hopefully.
"I don't know if you'd think them nice--you seem to expect such a lot
from people--but they're quite kind--only it's a different sort of
kindness from yours here. They don't laugh and expect you to enjoy
yourself, like _your_ father. My brothers say they are dull ... they
call them--I'm afraid it's very ungrateful--the weariful rich. But I
expect we're weariful to them too. I suppose poor relations _are_ boring
if you're well-off yourself. But we get pretty tired, too, when they
talk us over."
"But do you mean to say they talk you over _to_ you?"
"Always," Meg said firmly. "How badly we manage, how improvident we are,
how Papa ought to rouse himself and I ought to manage better, and how
foolish it is to let the boys go into the Army instead of banks and
things ... And yet, you know, it hasn't cost much for Trevor, and once
he's in he'll be able to manage, and Jo said he'd enlist if there was
any more talk of banks, and poor little Papa had to give in--so there it
is."
"How much older are they than you?" Jan asked.
"Trevor's nineteen and Jo's eighteen, and they are the greatest darlings
in the world. They always lifted the heavy saucepans for me at Bedford,
and filled the buckets and did the outsides of the windows, and carried
up the coals to Papa's sitting-room before they went to school in the
morning, and they very seldom grumbled at my cooking...."
"But where were the servants?" Fay asked innocently.
Meg laughed. "Oh, we couldn't have any servants. A woman came in the
morning. Papa dined at his club, and I managed for the boys and me. But,
oh dear, they do eat a lot, and joints are so dear. Sheep's heads and
things pall if you have them more than once a week. They're such a mixty
sort of meat, so gummy."
"_I_ can cook," Jan announced, then added humbly, "at least, I've been
to classes, but I don't get much practice. Cook isn't at all fond of
having me messing in her kitchen."
"It isn't the cooking that's so difficult," said Meg; "it's getting
things to cook. It's all very well for the books to say 'Take' this and
that. My experience is that you can never 'take' anything. You have to
buy every single ingredient, and there's never anything like enough. We
tried being fruitarians and living on dates and figs and nuts all
squashed together, but it didn't seem to come a bit cheaper, for the
boys were hungry again directly and said it was hog-wash."
"Was your papa a fruitarian too?" Fay asked.
"Oh, no, he can't play those tricks; he has to be most careful. He never
had his meals with us. Our meals would have been too rough for him. I
got him breakfast and afternoon tea. He generally went out for the
others."
Jan and Fay looked thoughtful.
* * * * *
Amelia Ross-Morton was a fair judge of character. When she consented to
take her husband's niece as a governess-pupil she had been dubious as to
the result. She very soon discovered, however, that the small red-haired
girl was absolutely trustworthy, that she had a power of keeping order
quite disproportionate to her size, that she got through a perfectly
amazing amount of work, and did whatever she was asked as a matter of
course. Thus she became a valuable factor in the school, receiving
nothing in return save her food and such clothes as Mrs. Ross-Morton
considered too shabby for her own wear.
At the end of the first year Meg ceased to receive any lessons. Her day
was fully occupied in teaching the younger and chaperoning the elder
girls. Only one stipulation did she make at the beginning of each
term--that she should be allowed to accept, on all reasonable occasions,
the invitations of Anthony Ross and his daughters, and she made this
condition with so much firmness that Anthony's cousin knew better than
to be unreasonably domineering, as was her usual habit. Moreover, though
it was against her principles to do anything to further the enjoyment
of persons in a subordinate position, she was, in a way, flattered that
Anthony and his girls should thus single out her "niece by marriage" and
appear to enjoy her society.
Thus it came about that Meg went a good deal to St. George's Square and
nearly always spent part of each holiday with Fay and Jan wherever they
happened to be.
The queer clothes were kept for wear at Ribston Hall, and by
degrees--although she never had any money--she became possessed of
garments more suitable to her age and colouring.
Again and again Anthony painted her. She sat for him with untiring
patience and devotion. She was always entirely at her ease with him, and
prattled away quite simply of the life that seemed to him so
inexpressibly hard and dreary.
Only once had he interfered on her behalf at Ribston Hall, and then
sorely against Meg's will. She was sitting for him one day, with her
veil of flaming hair spread round her, when she said, suddenly, "I
wonder why it is incorrect to send invitations by post to people living
in the same town?"
"But it isn't," Anthony objected. "Everybody does it."
"Not in schools," Meg said firmly. "Mrs. Ross-Morton will never send
invitations to people living in London through the post--she says it
isn't polite. They must go by hand."
"I never heard such nonsense," Anthony exclaimed crossly. "If she
doesn't send 'em by post, how _does_ she send them?"
"I take them generally, in the evening, after school, and deliver them
at all the houses. Some are fairly near, of course--a lot of her friends
live in Regent's Park--but sometimes I have to go quite a long way by
bus. I don't mind that in summer, when it's light, but in winter it's
horrid going about the lonely roads ... People speak to one...."
Anthony Ross stepped from behind his easel.
"And what do you do?" he asked.
"I run," Meg said simply, "and I can generally run much faster than they
do ... but it's a little bit frightening."
"It's infernal," Anthony said furiously. "I shall speak to Amelia at
once. You are never to do it again."
In vain did Meg plead, almost with tears, that he would do nothing of
the kind. He was roused and firm.
He did "speak to Amelia." He astonished that good lady as much as he
annoyed her. Nevertheless Mrs. Ross-Morton used the penny post for her
invitations as long as Meg remained at Ribston Hall.
At the end of two years Major Morton, who had removed from Bedford to
Cheltenham, wrote a long, querulous letter to his sister-in-law to the
effect that if--like the majority of girls nowadays--his daughter chose
to spend her life far from his sheltering care, it was time she earned
something.
Mrs. Ross-Morton replied that only now was Meg beginning to repay all
the expense incurred on her behalf in the way of board, clothing and
tuition; and it was most unreasonable to expect any salary for quite
another year.
Major Morton decided to remove Meg from Ribston Hall.
Many acrimonious letters passed between her aunt and her father before
this was finally accomplished, and Meg left "under a cloud."
To her great astonishment, her meek little uncle appeared at Paddington
to see her off. Just as the train was starting he thrust an envelope
into her hand.
"It hasn't been fair," he almost shouted--for the train was already
beginning to move. "You worked hard, you deserved some pay ... a little
present ... but please don't mention it to your aunt ... She is so
decided in her views...."
When Meg opened the envelope she found three ten-pound notes. She had
never seen so much money before, and burst into tears; but it was not
because of the magnitude of the gift. She felt she had never properly
appreciated her poor little uncle, and her conscience smote her.
This was at Christmas.
The weariful rich sat in conclave over Meg, and it was decided that she
should in March go as companion and secretary to a certain Mrs. Trent
slightly known to one of them.
Mrs. Trent was kindly, careless, and quite generous as regards money.
She had grown-up daughters, and they lived in one of the Home Counties
where there are many country-houses and plenty of sport. Meg proved to
be exceedingly useful, did whatever she was asked to do, and a great
many things no one had ever done before. She shared in the fun, and for
the first time since her mother died was not overworked.
Her employer was as keen on every form of pleasure as her own daughters.
She exercised the very smallest supervision over them and none at all
over the "quite useful" little companion.
Many men came to the easy-going, lavish house, and Meg, with pretty
frocks, abundant leisure and deliriously prim Ribston-Hallish manners,
came in for her full share of admiration.
It happened that at the end of July Anthony Ross came up to London in
the afternoon to attend and speak at a dinner in aid of some artists'
charity. He and Jan were staying with friends at Teddington; Fay, an
aunt and the servants were already at Wren's End--all but Hannah, the
severe Scottish housemaid, who remained in charge. She was grim and
gaunt and plain, with a thick, black moustache, and Anthony liked her
less than he could have wished. But she had been Jan's nurse, and was
faithful and trustworthy beyond words. He would never let Jan go to the
country ahead of him, for without her he always left behind everything
most vital to his happiness, so she was to join him next day and see
that his painting-tackle was all packed.
The house in St. George's Square was nominally shut up and shrouded in
dust-sheets, but Hannah had "opened up" the dining-room on Anthony's
behalf, and there he sat and slumbered till she should choose to bring
him some tea.
He was awakened by an opening door and Hannah's voice announcing, not
tea, but:
"Miss Morton to see you, sir."
There seemed a thousand "r's" in both the Morton and the sir, and
Anthony, who felt that there was something ominous and arresting in
Hannah's voice, was wide-awake before she could shut the door again.
Sure enough it was Meg, clad in a long grey dust-cloak and motor bonnet,
the grey veil flung back from a very pale face.
Meg, looking a wispy little shadow of woe.
Anthony came forward with outstretched hands.
"Meg, my child, what good wind has blown you here this afternoon? I
thought you were having ever such a gay time down in the country."
But Meg made no effort to grasp the greeting hands. On the contrary, she
moved so that the whole width of the dining-room table was between them.
"Wait," she said, "you mustn't shake hands with me till I tell you what
I've done ... perhaps you won't want to then."
And Anthony saw that she was trembling.
"Come and sit down," he said. "Something's wrong, I can see. What is
it?"
But she stood where she was, looking at him with large, tragic eyes;
laid down a leather despatch-case she was carrying, and seized the edge
of the table as if for support.
"I'd rather not sit down yet," she said. "Perhaps when you've heard what
I've got to tell you, you'll never want me to sit down in your house
again ... and yet ... I did pray so you'd be here ... I knew it was most
unlikely ... but I did pray so ... And you _are_ here."
Anthony was puzzled. Meg was not given to making scenes or going into
heroics.
It was evident that something had happened to shake her out of her usual
almost cynical calm.
"You'd be much better to sit down," he said, soothingly. "You see, if
you stand, so must I, and it's such an uncomfortable way of talking."
She pulled out a chair and sat down at the table, took off her gloves,
and two absurd small thumbs appeared above its edge, the knuckles white
and tense with the strength of her grip.
Anthony seated himself in a deep chair beside the fireplace. He was in
shadow. Meg faced the light, and he was shocked at the appearance of the
little smitten face.
"Now tell me," he said gently, "just as little or as much as you like."
"This morning," she said hoarsely, "I ran away with a man ... in a
motor-car."
Anthony was certainly startled, but all he said was, "That being the
case, why are you here, my dear, and what have you done with him?"
"He was married...."
"Have you only just found that out?"
"No, I knew it all along. His wife is hard and disagreeable and older
than he is ... and he's thirty-five ... and they can't live together,
and she won't divorce him and he can't divorce her ... and I loved him
so much and thought how beautiful it would be to give up everything and
make it up to him."
"Yes?" said Anthony, for Meg paused as though unable to go on.
"And it seemed very wonderful and noble to do this, and I forgot my poor
little Papa and those boys in India, and you and Jan and Fay and ... I
was very mad and very happy ... till this morning, when we actually went
off in his car."
"But where," Anthony asked in a voice studiously even and quiet, "_are_
he and his car?"
"I don't know," Meg said hopelessly, "unless they're still at the place
where we had lunch ... and I don't suppose he'd stay there all this
time...."
Anthony felt a great desire to laugh, but Meg looked so woebegone and
desperately serious that he restrained the impulse and said very kindly:
"I don't yet understand how, having embarked upon such an enterprise,
you happen to be here ... alone. Did you quarrel at lunch, or what?"
"We didn't _have_ lunch," Meg exclaimed with a sob. "At least, I didn't
... it was the lunch that did it."
"Did what?"
"Made me realise what I had done, and go away."
"Meg dear," said Anthony, striving desperately to keep his voice steady,
"was it a very bad lunch?"
"I don't know," she answered with the utmost seriousness. "We hadn't
begun; we were just going to, when I noticed his hands, and his nails
were dirty, and they looked horrid, and suddenly it came over me that if
I stayed ... those hands...."
She let go of the table, put her elbows upon it and hid her face in her
hands.
Anthony made no sound, and presently, still with hidden face, she went
on again:
"And in that minute I saw what I was doing, and that I could never be
the same again, and I remembered my poor little dyspeptic Papa, and my
dear, dear brothers so far away in India ... and you and Jan and
Fay--_all_ the special people I pray for every single night and
morning--and I felt that if I didn't get away that minute I should
die...."
"And how did you get away?"
"It was quite simple. There was something wrong with the car (that's how
he got his hands so dirty), and he'd sent for a mechanic, and just as we
were sitting down to lunch, the waiter said the motor-man had come ...
and he went out to the garage to speak to him...."
"Yes?" Anthony remarked, for again Meg paused.
"So I just walked out of the front door. No one saw me, and the station
was across the road, and I went right in and asked when there was a
train to London, and there _was_ one going in five minutes; so I took a
ticket and came straight here, for I knew somehow, even if you were all
away, Hannah would let me stay ... just to-night. I knew she would ..."
and Meg began to sob feebly.
And, as if in response to the mention of her name, Hannah appeared,
bearing a tray with tea upon it. Hannah was short and square; she
stumped as she walked, and she carried a tray very high and stately, as
though it were a sacrifice. As she came in Meg rose and hastily moved to
the window, standing there with her back to the room.
"I thocht," said Hannah, as though challenging somebody to contradict
her, "that Miss Morton would be the better for an egg to her tea. She
looks just like a bit soap after a hard day's washing."
"I had no lunch," said a muffled, apologetic voice from the window.
"Come away, then, and take yer tea," Hannah said sharply. "Young leddies
should have more sense than go fasting so many hours."
As it was evident that Hannah had no intention of leaving the room till
she saw Meg sitting at the table, the girl came back and sat down.
"See that she gets her tea, sir," she said in a low, admonitory voice to
Anthony. "She's pretty far through."
The tray was set at the end of the table. Anthony came and sat down
behind it.
"I'll pour out," he said, "and until you've drunk one cup of tea, eaten
one piece of bread-and-butter and one egg, you're not to speak one word.
_I_ will talk."
He tried to, disjointedly and for the most part nonsense. Meg drank her
tea, and to her own amazement ate up her egg and several pieces of
bread-and-butter with the utmost relish.
As the meal proceeded, Anthony noted that she grew less haggard. The
tears still hung on her eyelashes, but the eyes themselves were a
thought less tragic.
When Hannah came for the tray she gave a grunt of satisfaction at the
sight of the egg-shell and the empty plates.
"Now," said Anthony, "we must thresh this subject out and settle what's
to be done. I suppose you left a message for the Trents. What did you
tell them?"
"Lies," said Meg. "He said we must have a good start. His yacht was at
Southampton. And I left a note that I'd been suddenly summoned to Papa,
and would write from there. They'd all gone for a picnic, you know--and
it was arranged I was to have a headache that morning ... I've got it
now with a vengeance ... It seemed rather fun when we were planning it.
Now it all looks so mean and horrid ... Besides, lots of people saw us
in his motor ... and people always know me again because of my hair.
Everyone knew him ... the whole county made a fuss of him, and it seemed
so wonderful ... that he should care like that for me...."
"Doubtless it did," said Anthony drily. "But we must consider what is to
be done now. If you said you were going to your father, perhaps the best
thing you can do is to go to him, and write to the Trents from there. I
hope you didn't inform _him_ of your intention?"
"No," she faltered. "I was to write to him just before we sailed ... But
you may be perfectly sure the Trents will find out ... He will probably
go back there to look for me ... I expect he is awfully puzzled."
"I expect he is, and I hope," Anthony added vindictively, "the fellow is
terrified out of his life as well. He ought to be horsewhipped, and I'd
like to do it. A babe like you!"
"No," said Meg, firmly; "there you're wrong. I'm not a babe ... I knew
what I was doing; but up to to-day it seemed worth it ... I never seemed
to see till to-day how it would hurt other people. Even if he grew tired
of me--and I had faced that--there would have been some awfully happy
months ... and so long as it was only me, it didn't seem to matter. And
when you've had rather a mouldy life...."
"It can never be a case of 'only me.' As society is constituted, other
people are always involved."
"Yet there was Marian Evans ... he told me about her ... she did it, and
everyone came round to think it was very fine of her really. She wrote,
or something, didn't she?"
"She did," said Anthony, "and in several other respects her case was
not at all analogous to yours. She was a middle-aged woman--you are a
child...."
"Perhaps, but I'm not an ignorant child...."
"Oh, Meg!" Anthony protested.
"I daresay about books and things I am, but I mean I haven't been
wrapped in cotton-wool, and taken care of all my life, like Jan and Fay
... I know about things. Oh dear, oh dear, will you forbid Jan ever to
speak to me again?"
"Jan!" Anthony repeated. "Jan! Why, she's the person of all others we
want. We'll do nothing till she's here. Let's get her." And he pushed
back his chair and rushed to the bell.
Meg rushed after him: "You'll let her see me? You'll let her talk to me?
Oh, are you sure?"
The little hands clutched his arm, her ravaged, wistful face was raised
imploringly to his.
Anthony stooped and kissed the little face.
"It's just people like Jan who are put into the world to straighten
things out for the rest of us. We've wasted three-quarters of an hour
already. Now we'll get her."
"Is she on the telephone?" asked the practical Meg. "Not far off?"
* * * * *
Jan was quite used to being summoned to her father in a tremendous
hurry. She was back in St. George's Square before he started for the
dinner. Meg was lying down in one of the dismantled bedrooms, and when
Jan arrived she went straight to her father in his dressing-room.
She found him on his knees, pursuing a refractory collar-stud under the
wash-stand.
"It's well you've come," he said as he got up. "I can't fasten my collar
or my tie. I've had a devil of a time. My fingers are all thumbs and I'm
most detestably sticky."
He told Jan about Meg. She fastened his collar and arranged his tie in
the neatest of bows. Then she kissed him on both cheeks and told him not
to worry.
"How can one refrain from worrying when the works of the devil and the
selfishness of man are made manifest as they have been to-day? But for
the infinite mercy of God, where would that poor silly child have been?"
"It's just because the infinite mercy of God is so much stronger than
the works of the devil or the selfishness of man, that you needn't
worry," said Jan.
Anthony put his hands on Jan's shoulders and held her away from him.
"Do you know," he said, "I shall always like Hannah better after this.
In spite of her moustache and her grimness, that child was sure Hannah
would take her in, whether any of us were here or not. Now, how did she
know?"
"Because," said Jan, "things are revealed to babes like Meg that are
hidden from men of the world like you. Hannah is all right--you don't
appreciate Hannah, and you are rather jealous of her moustache."
Anthony leant forward and kissed his tall young daughter: "You are a
great comfort, Jan," he said. "How do you do it?"
Jan nodded at him. "It will all straighten out--don't you worry," she
said.
All the same, there was plenty of worry for everybody. The man, after
his fashion, was very much in love with Meg. He was horribly alarmed by
her sudden and mysterious disappearance. No one had seen her go, no one
had noticed her.
He got into a panic, and motored back to the Trents', arriving there
just before dinner. Mrs. Trent, tired and cross after a wet picnic, had,
of course, read Meg's note, thought it very casual of the girl and was
justly incensed.
On finding they knew no more of Meg's movements than he did himself, the
man--one Walter Brooke--lost his head and confessed the truth to Mrs.
Trent, who was much shocked and not a little frightened.
Later in the evening she received a telegram from Jan announcing Meg's
whereabouts.
Jan had insisted on this, lest the Trents should suspect anything and
wire to Major Morton.
Mrs. Trent, quite naturally, refused to have anything further to do with
Meg. She talked of serpents, and was very much upset. She wrote a
dignified letter to Major Morton, explaining her reasons for Meg's
dismissal. She also wrote to their relative among the weariful rich,
through whom she had heard of Meg.
Meg was more under a cloud than when she left Ribston Hall.
But for Jan and Anthony she might have gone under altogether; but they
took her down to Wren's End and kept guard over her. Anthony Ross dealt
faithfully with the man, who went yachting at once.
Meg recovered her poise, searched the advertisements of the scholastic
papers industriously, and secured a post in a school for little boys, as
Anthony forced his cousin Amelia to give her a testimonial.
Here she worked hard and was a great success, for she could keep order,
and that quality, where small boys are concerned, is much more valuable
than learning. She stayed there for some years, and then her frail
little ill-nourished body gave out, and she was gravely ill.
When she recovered, she went as English governess to a rich German
family in Bremen. The arrangement was only for one year, and at its
termination she was free to offer to meet Jan and her charges.