Miss Elizabeth Uniacke wore an aggressive air.
She stood in front of the mirror, her gray eyes critical, studying the
effect of her newly made gown.
On her knees beside her a stout dressmaker waited, in mute suspense,
her mouth full of pins. Her attitude was that of profound admiration,
but in her heart she quailed, foreseeing the verdict.
"Too tight round the ankles," said Aunt Elizabeth.
Mrs. Crouch, between the pins, bleated her dismay. She assured
"Meddam" it was the latest fashion: that to alter it by a
"hair-breadth" was to "ruin the cut!"
"I can't help that----" Miss Uniacke scowled--"I've told you before--I
won't be trussed like a fowl. I don't care what frights other women
make of themselves! I've my own style, and I shall keep to it."
She placed her pretty hands to either side of her waist, tightly
confined by a broad Petersham belt, and with a little wriggle of her
angular body seemed to shoot up like a crocus on its stem.
Mrs. Crouch swallowed a heavy sigh--a somewhat difficult and precarious
performance!
Pins still sprouted from between her lips and she gathered up the
scissors with a tragic gesture. Slowly she unpicked the two side seams.
"That's better!" Miss Uniacke gave an unexpected movement, followed by
an ominous rending sound.
"Ha!" she cried triumphantly. "You see for yourself!--I can't walk a
step. It's ridiculous!"
Mrs. Crouch sighed.
"We _might_..." she suggested, "leave one side open. With--perhaps--a
button?"
"And show my legs!" At the wrath in her client's voice the dressmaker
breathed a hurried:
"Oh, Meddam!--Indeed, Meddam, I had no intention--I was going to
suggest a fold ... underneath..."
"Not at all!" The irate lady snapped. "You've plenty of turnings.
Let it out. That's better ... Now, pin it ... There!----" Again she
took a step forward. "I can move at last. I'm sure I don't know what
we're coming to! You'll be asking me next to dye my hair blue! In
_my_ young days..."
There came a low tap at the door, breaking through the current of her
memories.
"Come in!--What is it?" She wheeled round, displeased.
"If you please, Mum." The parlour maid stood there, gaunt and prim.
"It's Mr. McTaggart asking to see you."
"Shut that door!--Now, what do you mean, Maria? You know I'm engaged.
Tell him I'm out."
But the elderly servant stood her ground. "He's in the drawing-room,
if you please, Mum. I told him you was h'occupied--but he said he
could wait." She cast an openly inquisitive glance at her mistress'
dress. The new Autumn gown was an "event" in that quiet household.
"Indeed." Aunt Elizabeth's voice was acid. "Well, he _can_ wait,
then! You'd no business, Maria, to let him in at all. You take too
much on yourself."
"I'm sorry, Mum. But the card in the hall said 'h'_In_,' not
'h'_Out_,' so 'ow was I to tell?" She tossed her head with an air of
injured innocence.
"That will do." Miss Uniacke's eyes had wandered back to the mirror,
irresistibly attracted.
It certainly _was_ smart ... The colour suited her.
"Perhaps I'd better go and get it over," she said. "If these pins will
hold?" She addressed the kneeling figure.
"I'll make sure, Meddam." Mrs. Crouch smiled. She came to work "by
the day" and was not at all averse to a spell of idleness reaped from
the occasion.
But Aunt Elizabeth guessed her secret thought. "You can have your tea
now, instead of later on. That will save time." Mrs. Crouch sighed.
"Yes, Meddam." She drove a pin upward with the amiable desire that
Miss Uniacke should risk, when she sat down, a reminder of the fact!
The unconscious victim rustled through the hall. That, she decided,
was the best of taffetas. It had a distinctive and aristocratic note.
Her temper was soothed by the gentle frou-frou.
McTaggart was standing talking to the parrot who, after the manner of
those wayward birds, received his advances with a stony silence, and
sharpened, at intervals, his beak on the perch.
"How do you do?" Her guest wheeled round quickly at Miss Uniacke's
voice, his face eager. "This is good of you! I heard you were engaged
and was prepared to wait for hours! Polly refused to take pity upon
me," he added as they shook hands.
"Silly fool!" said the parrot explosively, the moment McTaggart turned
his back.
Aunt Elizabeth, fearing that worse might follow, picked up the baize
cover and blotted the bird out effectually.
"He gets so tiresome," she explained. "Won't you sit here?" and was
settling herself on the sofa facing her visitor when she rose with a
startled look of pain.
"Silly fool!" came from the cage in muffled accents. "Ha ... ha ...
ha!"
"A pin!" said Aunt Elizabeth, gingerly sinking down again. "The fact
is I was being fitted on with a new dress when you arrived. I didn't
like to keep you waiting, so I came as I was--pins and all!"
"It's a very pretty one," said McTaggart--"suits you, too. Such a
jolly colour."
"You think so?" The little old lady was pleased and a slight flush
warmed her face.
"I suppose," said McTaggart as the pause prolonged itself and he felt
she was waiting to gather the object of his visit; "I suppose you've
heard about ... Mrs. Uniacke?"
The moment the words had passed his lips he knew he had made a tactless
start.
For his hostess bristled visibly.
"If you've called to plead for Mary," she said and her voice was
short--"I had better tell you that I wash my hands of that affair!
I've finished with them--the whole family!"
"Jill?" ...
"Yes----" she caught him up. "Jill, _and_ Roddy--They might have
guessed. They ought to have warned me long ago! It's their own
fault--and I've done with them."
"Oh, no!" McTaggart's blue eyes were eloquent. "You don't _mean_ it?
You couldn't just now when they want you so." He saw a slight quiver
cross her face. "And _I_ want you--all your help! We can't get on
without it, you know--Jill and I..."
She gave a start at the coupling together of the names.
"I don't understand," she said drily.
"No?--I'm afraid I'm explaining myself rather badly. I thought you'd
guess ... The fact is, Aunt Elizabeth," he smiled at her
affectionately, "I'm hoping you'll let me become, you know, a _real_
nephew of yours, one day."
The little old lady gave a gasp. "I _knew_ it!" she cried
triumphantly. "You and Jill?--Ha!" she laughed. "You can't deceive an
old woman like me!"
"I don't want to!" McTaggart sprang up, his hand outstretched to meet
her own, his face so radiant with happiness that her old heart softened
at the sight.
"But I must have _your_ permission first. I don't care a hang what her
mother says!--She's placed herself outside the affair. Gone off and
left those two children..." he checked himself, his voice indignant.
"But you're her father's sister, you see--his favourite one. And we
both think you've as good a right as any one ... to give her away."
He stopped abruptly.
"Give her away? _Jill_, you mean?" she stared at him, obviously
amazed. "What are you talking about, young man? You're not going to
marry her _to-morrow_?"
"No," he amended, "to-morrow week."
He laughed at her startled exclamation, and went on, still holding her
hand--unconsciously abandoned to him--with subtle persuasion in his
voice.
"I don't want you--exactly--to 'give her away.' In any sense!----" he
laughed again--"but you simply _must_ come to the wedding. We've both
of us set our hearts on that."
"I never heard such utter nonsense in all my life!" she protested
stoutly--"and don't imagine I shall allow it!" But, as she looked at
his resolute face, inwardly she commended his spirit.
"Of all the ridiculous notions..." she fumed; but McTaggart guessed she
was wavering.
"Tell me, first, you're pleased about it? _Do_ say you think I'll make
Jill happy?"
"Well----" she paused--"I'll admit you'll _try_! She's a bit of a
handful--that young woman."
Her grey eyes began to twinkle. Jill, she thought, had found her
master.
"Yes--I'm glad. Though I shan't hear..."
He checked the protest audaciously. Before she could gather his
intention he had stooped and kissed her faded cheek.
"Thank you, Aunt Elizabeth. On Tuesday week I'll take another--In the
vestry!"
He chuckled gaily.
"Well--I never...!" Miss Uniacke gasped. For once her sharp tongue was
silenced. Her face was flushed and, helplessly, she straightened the
crooked brown fringe.
"Now----" McTaggart sat down, uninvited, by her side ... "I think we
ought to talk business and fix up a few plans. I've got the
license--that's all right. And to-night I'm going down to Oxton. The
Bishop is my friend, you know, and I want him to come and marry us.
Mrs. Uniacke's honeymoon--I mean Mrs. Somerfield----" her sister-in-law
winced slightly and he went on hurriedly--"Well, she doesn't get back
to Worthing till Wednesday. So, if you could manage to run down and
stay with Jill until we're married ... You see my idea?" his face went
red--"It would stop any silly talk, you know. But, perhaps, you could
come to the lawyers first and fix up the settlements? I want to make
that all square; for Jill's sake, you understand?"
Miss Uniacke caught him up sharply. "I hope you're not under the
delusion that my niece has anything of her own?" Purposely she
withheld from him the knowledge of the modest sum left the girl by her
Father.
"My dear Aunt Elizabeth!" McTaggart looked taken aback. "I meant _my_
money, of course. I'd better tell you all about it."
He proceeded forthwith to enlighten her on the subject of his
inheritance.
Miss Uniacke's gray eyes slowly widened with amazement.
"You mean to say," she said at last, "that Jill will be a marchioness?"
"Well, that's thrown in!" McTaggart laughed--"Won't she make a pretty
one! I think she'll just love Siena--and Rome too--it's a ripping
place! You'll have to come and stay with us. Oh, I forgot--about
Roddy." He went on with his plans for the latter, his handsome face
alight with pleasure. Miss Uniacke guessed in every word the depths of
his love for the boy's sister.
"It's like a fairy tale!" she said.
"It is a fairy tale----" his voice was lowered now with a touch of awe.
"All true love is that, I think. It's outside this work-a-day world.
Something too fine to be measured--like a beautiful vision seen in a
dream..."
He glanced up shyly at his listener and in her worn and serious face
caught a look of longing, oddly pathetic, but full of genuine sympathy.
For a moment their thoughtful eyes met--the old, saddened ones, knowing
life, and those of youth, bright with hope: met and wondered, across
the gulf.
Then McTaggart broke the silence.
"I don't want Jill to know yet. About my inheritance, I mean. I want
it to come as a huge surprise!--on our arrival in Siena. She knows
I've got some property there--I fancy she thinks it's just a farm!--but
I've always kept it rather dark from everybody. It's like this----" he
fidgeted, under the gaze of her shrewd grey eyes, hunting for words.
"Although my mother was Italian I've always _felt_ an Englishman.
Really, deep down in myself, I'd sooner be English, any day. But, on
the other hand, you see, I admit a certain responsibility. My mother
was treated abominably"--a hard look came into his face--"just because
she married my father! They practically cut her adrift.
"Now, by an odd stroke of luck, I have come into all that my mother
lost. And I feel it's up to me to show that she was right, after all.
She married for love, and so shall I. An English wife ... my little
Jill! But we'll have to live in Italy half the year--be Maramonte as
well as McTaggart--not for ourselves but because I believe that _she_
would have wished it."
His eyes had a curious far away look. Then he seemed to come back to
the present.
"All the same I've felt, somehow, that a foreign title, over here,
wouldn't do--rather snobbish..." He laughed with a shade of
nervousness.
"Quite right." Miss Uniacke nodded. She liked the man more and more.
But, despite her careless attitude toward the secret he shared with
her, her old heart warmed at the thought of this splendid match for the
girl she loved.
"You won't tell her? You'll keep it dark!"
"Of course--it's your affair, not mine."
She smiled the harshness out of the words.
"All the same," she went on, "I think you ought to tell her mother. I
don't approve of Mary myself--I think her conduct to her children
simply shocking----" she frowned again--"the secrecy--and this sudden
marriage! Still, she brought Jill into the world--it's _her_ daughter,
not mine. It's paying her back in her own coin ... but I _know_ I
ought to stop this folly!"
"But you won't?" His voice was very earnest. "Look here, Miss
Uniacke. She's never given a thought to Jill--or Roddy either,
latterly. She's bringing a penniless, idle chap into her home to live
with her children. She'll have to support him--you know that? At
their expense! For, after all, it's Colonel Uniacke's money, you know,
that she holds in trust for the next generation. It means a cruel time
for them under the thumb of that rotter, Stephen. On a slender income,
deprived of their rights and shadowed by this Suffrage nonsense.
"Think of Jill, living with Stephen?--and Roddy--a schoolboy, in _his_
hands...!
"Instead of which, here am I--luckily a rich man; able to give the boy
a chance, and Jill ... pretty well all she wants!
"I'd just like you to see some pearls I've got for her in the Roman
bank"--he threw his head back and laughed boyishly, with a note of
triumph--"They'd make Stephen's mouth water--damn the chap!--I beg your
pardon!"
But Miss Uniacke smiled grimly; forgetful of the listening parrot.
McTaggart, encouraged, started again.
"I can't bear to think of Jill for a day in the house with that man.
That's why I'm doing this, entirely, to get her away before he returns.
Can't you guess what it will save her? The bitterness of seeing him
there, ruling in her father's place, in the old home, where he lived..."
"Stop!" Miss Uniacke grasped his arm--"I can't stand it!--It's not
fair. Edward..." She choked on the name.
McTaggart took her hands in his.
"Tell me now, honestly"--his blue eyes were keen and anxious as he
gazed into her moved face. "D'you think, if your brother were alive,
he'd give me Jill?"
There came a pause. It seemed to them both that, somewhere near, a
shadow hovered, watching them, with a love that had survived the grave.
Then, at last, Miss Uniacke spoke.
"Yes," she answered solemnly--"I think he would. And so will I."