ANOTHER WAY OF LOVE
Meg and the children, returning from their tea-party at the vicarage,
were stopped continually in their journey through the main street by
friendly folk who wanted to greet the children. It was quite a triumphal
progress, and Meg was feeling particularly proud that afternoon, for her
charges, including William, had all behaved beautifully. Little Fay had
refrained from snatching other children's belongings with the cool
remark, "Plitty little Fay would like 'at"; Tony had been quite merry
and approachable; and William had offered paws and submitted to
continual pullings, pushings and draggings with exemplary patience.
Once through the friendly, dignified old street, they reached the main
road, which was bordered by rough grass sloping to a ditch surmounted by
a thick thorn hedge. They were rather late, and Meg was wheeling little
Fay as fast as she could, Tony trotting beside her to keep up, when a
motor horn was sounded behind them and a large car came along at a good
speed. They were all well to the side of the road, but William--with the
perverse stupidity of the young dog--above all, of the young
bull-terrier--chose that precise moment to gambol aimlessly right into
the path of the swiftly-coming motor, just as it seemed right upon him;
and this, regardless of terrified shouts from Meg and the children,
frantic sounding of the horn and violent language from the driver of the
car.
It seemed that destruction must inevitably overtake William when the car
swerved violently as the man ran it down the sloping bank, where it
stuck, leaving William, unscathed and rather alarmed by all the clamour,
to run back to his family.
Meg promptly whacked him as hard as she could, whereupon, much
surprised, he turned over on his back, waving four paws feebly in the
air.
"Why don't you keep your dog at the side?" the man shouted with very
natural irritation as he descended from his seat.
"He's a naughty--stupid--puppy," Meg ejaculated between the whacks. "It
wasn't your fault in the least, and it was awfully good of you to avoid
him."--Whack--whack.
The man started a little as she spoke and came across the road towards
them.
Meg raised a flushed face from her castigation of William, but the
pretty colour faded quickly when she saw who the stranger was.
"Meg!" he exclaimed. "_You!_"
For a tense moment they stared at one another, while the children stared
at the stranger. He was certainly a handsome man; melancholy,
"interesting." Pale, with regular features and sleepy, smallish eyes set
very near together.
"If you knew how I have searched for you," he said.
His voice was his great charm, and would have made his fortune on the
stage. It could convey so much, could be so tender and beseeching, so
charged with deepest sadness, so musical always.
"Your search cannot have been very arduous," Meg answered drily. "There
has never been any mystery about my movements." And she looked him
straight in the face.
"At first, I was afraid ... I did not try to find you."
"You were well-advised."
"Who is 'at sahib?" little Fay interrupted impatiently. "Let us go
home." She had no use for any sahib who ignored her presence.
"Yes, we'd better be getting on," Meg said hurriedly, and seized the
handle of the pram.
But he stood right in their path.
"You were very cruel," the musical voice went on. "You never seemed to
give a thought to all _I_ was suffering."
Meg met the sleepy eyes, that used to thrill her very soul, with a look
of scornful amusement in hers that was certainly the very last
expression he had ever expected to see in them.
She had always dreaded this moment.
Realising the power this man had exercised over her, she always feared
that should she meet him again the old glamour would surround him; the
old domination be reasserted. She forgot that in five years one's
standards change.
Now that she did meet him she discovered that he held no bonds with
which to bind her. That what she had dreaded was a chimera. The real
Walter Brooke, the moment he appeared in the flesh, destroyed the image
memory had set up; and Meg straightened her slender shoulders as though
a heavy burden had dropped from them.
The whole thing passed like a flash.
"You were very cruel," he repeated.
"There is no use going into all that," Meg answered in a cheerful,
matter-of-fact tone. "Good-bye, Mr. Brooke. We are most grateful to you
for not running over William, who is," here she raised her voice for the
benefit of the culprit, "a naughty--tiresome dog."
"But you can't leave me like this. When can I see you again--there is so
much I want to explain...."
"But I don't want any explanations, thank you. Come children, we _must_
go."
"Meg, listen ... surely you have some little feeling of kindness towards
me ... after all that happened...."
He put his hand on Meg's arm to detain her, and William, who had never
been known to show enmity to human creature, gave a deep growl and
bristled. A growl so ominous and threatening that Meg hastily loosed the
pram and caught him by the collar with both hands.
Tony saw that Meg was flustered and uncomfortable. "Why does he not go?"
he asked. "I thought he was a sahib, but I suppose he is the
gharri-wallah. We have thanked him--does he want backsheesh? Give him a
rupee."
"He _does_ want backsheesh," the deep, musical voice went on--"a little
pity, a little common kindness."
It was an embarrassing situation. William was straining at his collar
and growling like an incipient thunderstorm.
"We have thanked you," Tony said again with dignity. "We have no money,
or we would reward you. If you like to call at the house, Auntie Jan
always has money."
The man smiled pleasantly at Tony.
"Thank you, young man. You have told me exactly what I wanted to know.
So you are with your friends?"
"I can't hold this dog much longer," Meg gasped. "If you don't
go--you'll get bitten."
William ceased to growl, for far down the road he had heard a footstep
that he knew. He still strained at his collar, but it was in a direction
that led away from Mr. Walter Brooke. Meg let go and William swung off
down the road.
"Shall we all have a lide in loo ghalli?" little Fay asked--it seemed to
her sheer waste of time to stand arguing in the road when a good car was
waiting empty. The children called every form of conveyance a "gharri."
"We shall meet again," said this persistent man. "You can't put me off
like this."
He raised his voice, for he was angry, and its clear tones carried far
down the quiet road.
"There's Captain Middleton with William," Tony said suddenly. "Perhaps
_he_ has some money."
Meg paled and crimsoned, and with hands that trembled started to push
the pram at a great pace.
The man went back to his car, and Tony, regardless of Meg's call to him,
ran to meet William and Miles.
The back wheels of the car had sunk deeply into the soft wet turf. It
refused to budge. Miles came up. He was long-sighted, and he had seen
very well who it was that was talking to Meg in the road. He had also
heard Mr. Brooke's last remark.
Till lately he had only known Walter Brooke enough to dislike him
vaguely. Since his interview with Mrs. Trent this feeling had
intensified to such an extent as surprised himself. At the present
moment he was seething with rage, but all the same he went and helped to
get the car up the bank, jacking it up, and setting his great shoulders
against it to start it again.
All this Tony watched with deepest interest, and Meg waited, fuming, a
little way down the road, for she knew it was hopeless to get Tony to
come till the car had once started. Once on the hard road again, it
bowled swiftly away and to her immense relief passed her without
stopping.
She saw that Miles was bringing Tony, and started on again with little
Fay.
Fury was in her heart at Tony's disobedience, and behind it all a dull
ache that Miles should have heard, and doubtless misunderstood, Walter
Brooke's last remark.
Tony was talking eagerly as he followed, but she was too upset to listen
till suddenly she heard Miles say in a tone of the deepest satisfaction,
"Good old William."
This was too much.
She stopped and called over her shoulder: "He isn't good at all; he's a
thoroughly tiresome, disobedient, badly-trained dog."
They came up with her at that, and William rolled over on his back, for
he knew those tones portended further punishment.
"He's an ass in lots of ways," Miles allowed, "but he is an excellent
judge of character."
And as if in proof of this William righted himself and came cringing to
Meg to try and lick the hand that a few minutes ago had thumped him so
vigorously.
Meg looked up at Miles and he looked down at her, and his gaze was
pained, kind and grave. _His_ eyes were large and well-opened and set
wide apart in his broad face. Honest, trustworthy eyes they were.
Very gently he took the little pram from her, for he saw that her hands
were trembling: "You've had a fright," he said. "I know what it is. I
had a favourite dog run over once. It's horrible, it takes months to get
over it. I can't think why dogs are so stupid about motors ... must have
been a near shave that ... very decent of Brooke--he's taken pounds off
his car with that wrench."
While Miles talked he didn't look at Meg.
"I say, little Fay," he suddenly suggested, "wouldn't you like to walk a
bit?" and he lifted her out. "There, that's better. Now, Miss Morton,
you sit down a minute; you've had a shake, you know. I'll go on with the
kiddies."
Meg was feeling a horrible, humiliating desire to cry. Her eyes were
bright with unshed tears, her knees refused to bear her. Thankfully she
sat down on the foot-board of Fay's little pram. The tall figure between
the two little ones suddenly grew blurred and dim. Furtively she blew
her nose and wiped her eyes. They were not a stone's throw from the
lodge at Wren's End.
How absurd to be sitting there!
And yet she didn't feel inclined to move just yet.
"'Ere, my dear, you take a sip o' water; the gentleman's told me all
about it. Them sort o' shocks fair turns one over."
And kind Mrs. Earley was beside her, holding out a thick tumbler. Meg
drank the deliciously cold water and arose refreshed.
And somehow the homely comfort of Mrs. Earley's presence made her
realise wherein lay the essential difference between these two men.
"He still treats me like a princess," she thought, "even though he
thinks ... Oh, what _can_ he think?" and Meg gave a little sob.
"There, there!" said Mrs. Earley, "don't you take on no more, Miss. The
dear dog bain't 'urted not a 'air of him. 'E cum frolicking in that
friendly--I sometimes wonders if there do be anyone as William 'ud ever
bite. 'E ain't much of a watchdog, I fear."
"He nearly bit someone this afternoon," Meg said.
"Well, I'm not sorry to yer it. It don't do for man nor beast to be too
trustful--not in this world it don't."
At the drive gate Miles was standing.
Mrs. Earley took the pram with her for Earley to clean, and Meg and
Miles walked on together.
"I'm sorry you've had this upset," he said. "I've talked to William like
a father."
"It wasn't only William," Meg murmured.
They were close to the house, and she stopped.
"Good night, Captain Middleton. I must go and put my children to bed;
we're late."
"I don't want to seem interfering, Miss Morton, but don't you let anyone
bully you into picking up an acquaintance you'd rather drop."
"I suppose," said Meg, "one always has to pay for the things one has
done."
"Well, yes, sooner or later; but it's silly to pay Jew prices."
"Ah," said Meg, "you've never been poor enough to go to the Jews, so you
can't tell."
* * * * *
Miles walked slowly back to Amber Guiting that warm May evening. He had
a good deal to think over, for he had come to a momentous decision. When
he thought of Meg as he had just seen her--small and tremulous and
tearful--he clenched his big hands and made a sound in his throat not
unlike William's growl. When he pictured her angry onslaught upon
William, he laughed. But the outcome of his reflections was this--that
whether in the past she had really done anything that put her in Walter
Brooke's power, or whether he was right to trust to that intangible
quality in her that seemed to give the direct lie to the worst of Mrs.
Trent's story, Meg appeared to him to stand in need of some hefty chap
as a buffer between her and the hard world, and he was very desirous of
being that same for Meg.
His grandfather, "Mutton-Pie Middleton," had married one of his own
waitresses for no other reason than that he found she was "the lass for
him"--and he might, so the Doncaster folk thought, have looked a good
deal higher for a wife, for he was a "warm" man at the time. Miles
strongly resembled his grandfather. He was somewhat ruefully aware that
in appearance there was but little of the Keills about him. He could
just remember the colossal old man who must have weighed over twenty
stone in his old age, and Miles, hitherto, had refused to buy a motor
for his own use because he knew that if he was to keep his figure he
must walk, and walk a lot.
Like his grandfather, he was now perfectly sure of himself; Meg "was the
lass for him"; but he was by no means equally sure of her. By some
infallible delicacy of instinct--and this he certainly did not get from
the Middletons--he knew that what the world would regard as a
magnificent match for Meg, might be the very circumstance that would
destroy his chance with her. The Middletons were all keenly alive to the
purchasing powers of money, and saw to it that they got their money's
worth.
All the same, a man's a man, whether he be rich or poor, and Miles still
remembered the way Meg had smiled upon him the first time they ever met.
Surely she could never have smiled at him like that unless she had
rather liked him.
It was the pathos of Meg herself--not the fact that she had to
work--that appealed to Miles. That she should cheerfully earn her own
living instead of grousing in idleness in a meagre home seemed to him
merely a matter of common sense. He knew that if he had to do it he
could earn his, and the one thing he could neither tolerate nor
understand about a good many of his Keills relations was their
preference for any form of assistance to honest work. He helped them
generously enough, but in his heart of hearts he despised them, though
he did not confess this even to himself.
As he drew near the Manor House he saw Lady Mary walking up and down
outside, evidently waiting for him.
"Where have you been, Miles?" she asked, impatiently. "Pen has been
here, and wanted specially to see you, but she couldn't stay any longer,
as it's such a long run back. She motored over from Malmesbury."
"What did she want?" Miles asked. "She's always in a stew about
something. One of her Pekinese got pip, or what?"
Lady Mary took his arm and turned to walk along the terrace. "I think,"
she said, and stopped. "Where _were_ you, Miles?"
"I strolled down the village to get some tobacco, and then I saw a chap
who'd got his motor stuck, and helped him, and then ..." Here Miles
looked down at his aunt, who looked up at him apprehensively. "I caught
up with Miss Morton and the children, and walked back to Wren's End with
them. There, Aunt Mary, that's a categorical history of my time since
tea."
Lady Mary pressed his arm. "Miles, dear, do you think it's quite wise to
be seen about so much with little Miss Morton ... wise for her I mean?"
"I hope I'm not the sort of chap it's bad to be seen about with...."
"Of course not, dear Miles, but, you see, her position...."
"What's the matter with her position?"
"Of course I know it's most creditable of her and all that ... but ...
when a girl has to go out as a sort of nursery governess, it is
different, isn't it, dear? I mean...."
"Yes, Aunt Mary, I'm awfully interested--different from what?"
"From girls who lead the sheltered life, girls who don't work ... girls
of our own class."
"I don't know," Miles said thoughtfully, "that I should say Pen, for
instance, lives exactly a _sheltered_ life, should you?"
"Pen is married."
"Yes, but before she was married ... eh, Aunt Mary? Be truthful, now."
Miles held his aunt's arm tightly within his, and he stooped and looked
into her face.
"And does the fact that Pen is married explain or excuse her deplorable
taste in men? Which does it do, Aunt Mary? Speak up, now."
Lady Mary laughed. "I'm not here to defend Pen; I'm here to get your
answer as to whether you think it's ... quite fair to make that little
Miss Morton conspicuous by running after her and making her the talk of
the entire county, for that's what you're doing."
"What good old Pen has been telling you I'm doing, I suppose."
"I had my own doubts about it without any help from Pen ... but she said
Alec Pottinger had been talking...."
"Pottinger's an ass."
"He doesn't talk _much_, anyhow, Miles, and she felt if _he_ said
anything...."
"Look here, Aunt Mary, how's a chap to go courting seriously if he
doesn't run after a girl?... he can't work it from a distance ... not
unless he's one of those poet chaps, and puts letters in hollow trees
and so on. And you don't seem to have provided any hollow trees about
here."
"Courting ... seriously!" Lady Mary repeated with real horror in her
tones. "Oh, Miles, you can't mean that!"
"Surely you'd not prefer I meant the other thing?"
"But, Miles dear, think!"
"I have thought, and I've thought it out."
"You mean you want to _marry_ her?"
Lady Mary spoke in an awed whisper.
"Just exactly that, and I don't care who knows it; but I'm not at all
sure she wants to marry me ... that's why I don't want to rush my fences
and get turned down. I'm a heavy chap to risk a fall, Aunt Mary."
"Oh, Miles! this is worse than anything Pen even dreamt of."
"What is? If you mean that she probably won't have me--I'm with you."
"Of course she'd jump at you--any girl would.... But a little
nursemaid!"
"Come now, Aunt Mary, you know very well she's just as good as I am;
better, probably, for she's got no pies nor starch in her pedigree. Her
father's a Major and her mother was of quite good family--and she's got
lots of rich, stingy relations ... and she doesn't sponge on 'em. What's
the matter with her?"
"Please don't do anything in a hurry, dear Miles."
"I shan't, if you and Pen and the blessed 'county,' with its criticism
and gossip, don't drive me into it ... but the very first word you
either say or repeat to me against Miss Morton, off I go to her and to
the old Major.... So now we understand each other, Aunt Mary--eh?"
"There are things you ought to know, Miles."
"You may depend," said Miles grimly, "that anything I ought to know I
shall be told ... over and over again ... confound it.... And remember,
Aunt Mary, that what I've told you is not in the least private. Tell
Pen, tell Mrs. Fream, tell Withells, but just leave me to tell Miss
Ross, that's all I beg."
"Miles, I shall tell nobody, for I hope ... I hope----"
"'Hope told a flattering tale,'" said Miles, and kissed his aunt ... but
to himself he said: "I've shut their mouths for a day or two anyway."