Mr Milne started to his feet half involuntarily.
And--"He has been expecting this summons," thought Frances.
"I am afraid," he said, turning to his hostess apologetically, "I am
afraid I must not allow myself to enjoy a cup of your excellent tea, for
that must be Mr Littlewood. He's been looking round the place with the
bailiff this afternoon, and we arranged that he should call for me here,
as we have a good deal of business before us this evening; so may I ask
you to excuse--"
"By no means," said Mr Morion in a tone of unwonted heartiness. "We
can't think of excusing you, Milne. On the contrary, can you not ask
Mr Littlewood to join us? A few moments' delay in tackling your
business cannot possibly signify."
The three pairs of ears could scarcely credit what they heard, the three
pairs of eyes exchanged furtive glances, while Lady Emma murmured
something vaguely civil by way of endorsement of her husband's proposal.
It was the lawyer who hesitated. To tell the truth, knowing the
peculiarities of his present host as he did, he had been feeling during
the last quarter of an hour somewhat nervous, and he now devoutly wished
that he had not suggested Mr Littlewood's calling for him at Fir
Cottage, seeing that his talk with Mr Morion had been so much longer
than he had anticipated.
"I should not have let myself be persuaded to come in to tea," he
thought, "and then I could have met Littlewood just outside."
And now his misgivings, thanks to Mr Morion's unusual amiability,
turned in the other direction.
"Ten to one," so his inner reflections ran on, "Littlewood will be
annoyed at being asked to come in." For by way of precautionary excuse
for any possible surliness on the part of the representative Morion of
the neighbourhood, should he and the stranger come across each other,
poor Mr Milne had thought it politic to describe Fir Cottage and its
inmates in no very attractive terms.
"I think, perhaps," he began aloud, addressing his hostess, and rising
as he spoke, "I think perhaps I had better not suggest Mr Littlewood's
joining us, though I shall take care to convey to him your kind wish
that he should do so. I have been decoyed," with a smile in his host's
direction, "into staying an unwarrantable time already, and as I must
positively return to town to-morrow morning, I have really a good deal
of work to get through to-night."
Lady Emma would have yielded the point, and was beginning to say
something to that effect, when her husband interrupted her. Mr Morion
was nothing if not obstinate, and now that the fiat had gone forth that
the stranger was to be admitted, enter he must at all costs.
"Nonsense, my good sir," he said, in what for him was a tone of light
jocularity. "There now! I hear them answering the door and your friend
inquiring for you. Just ask him to come in," and he opened the
drawing-room door as he spoke. "I'll step out with you myself."
There was no longer any getting out of it for Mr Milne. He hurried
forward with the intention of an explanatory word or two with Mr
Littlewood, but in this he literally reckoned without his host, for Mr
Morion was at his heels, and there was nothing for it but a formal
introduction on the spot.
"Pray, come in," said Mr Morion; "we are just having tea. My wife and
daughters are in the drawing-room," he said, with a wave of his hand in
that direction, "and Mr Milne always pays us a visit when he comes
down."
The newcomer glanced at the lawyer in some surprise. This was scarcely
the boorish hermit who had been described to him. All the same, he was
not desirous of embarrassing himself with the acquaintanceship of this
family, whose very existence he had almost ignored, or at least
forgotten, till Mr Milne took occasion to refer to them.
But the afternoon was drawing in to evening; it was raw and chilly
outside, and disagreeably draughty in the doorway where he stood, and
the prospect of a hot cup of tea was not without its attraction.
"Thanks, many thanks," he said. "We haven't long to spare, but I should
be sorry to hurry Milne," and so saying he entered the little hall.
In the drawing-room, meantime, the suppressed excitement of the two
younger of its four inmates was increasing momentarily, Eira, indeed,
being so far carried away by it as to approach the half-open door, or
doorway, so as to lose no word of the colloquy taking place outside.
"Betty! Frances!" she exclaimed, though in a whisper, her cheeks
growing momentarily pinker, "he's coming in! I do believe he's coming
in, and his voice doesn't sound as if he were old at all. He's tall,
too, and"--with another furtive jerk of her head--"as far as I can see,
I do believe he's _very_ good-looking."
Frances was springing forward with uplifted finger, in dismay at Eira's
behaviour, when for once, to her relief, her mother took the matter out
of her hands.
"Eira," she said quickly, so that, even if her voice had been overheard
by those outside, no chiding tone could have been suspected, "Eira, I am
really ashamed of you. Sit down quietly and take your tea."
Eira obeyed without a word, feeling, in point of fact, rather small; so
no signs of agitation were discernible in the little group as the door
was thrown open more widely to admit of Mr Morion ushering in his
guests, the stranger naturally first.
"I have persuaded Mr Littlewood to join us for a few moments," said the
master of the house, as he introduced him to his wife. "Frances,
another cup of tea, if you please." And Betty quietly rang the bell as
he spoke, returning immediately to her seat near the large table, on
which was placed a lamp.
Mr Littlewood glanced at her, and then at her sisters, without
appearing to do so.
"Milne has not much power of description," he thought to himself; "if
they were decently dressed they would not be bad-looking girls;
indeed,"--and for a moment his glance reverted to Betty.
He would have been quite ready to open a conversation with her or with
any of them, but, humiliating as it is to confess it, both the younger
girls were by this time consumed by an agony of shyness. It was to
Frances as she handed him some tea that he addressed his first
observation--some triviality about the weather, to which she replied
with perfect self-possession, taking the first opportunity of drawing
her mother into the conversation, for such a thing as independent action
on the part of even the eldest daughter would certainly have been
treated by her parents as a most heinous offence.
By degrees Betty and Eira gained courage enough to glance at the
stranger, now that his attention was taken up by their mother and
sister.
He was young and--yes--he was decidedly good-looking. Rather fair than
dark, with something winning and ingratiating about his whole manner and
bearing, in spite of the decided tone and air of complete
self-possession, if not self-confidence--almost amounting to lordly
indifference to the effect he might produce on others.
As in duty bound, Mr Littlewood responded at once to Lady Emma's first
remark--some commonplace inquiry as to whether this was his first visit
to that part of the country.
"Yes," he replied, "practically so, though my mother informs me that as
children we spent some months in this neighbourhood, but I don't
remember it. That's to say, I remember nothing of the country, though I
do recollect the house and garden, which seemed to me all that was
charming and beautiful--and mysterious too. The garden was skirted by a
wood, fascinating yet alarming. Children's memories are queer things."
"Do you think it was near here?" said Frances, "anywhere about Craig
Bay? If so, it would be interesting to revisit it."
Betty and Eira glanced at her in mute admiration. How could she have
the courage to address this exceedingly smart personage with such ease
and self-possession? Nor did the manner of his reply diminish their
wonder. He seemed to look at Frances as if he had not seen her before,
though at the same time no one could possibly have accused him of the
slightest touch of discourtesy.
"I haven't the vaguest idea," he said, "and there would be small chance
of my recognising the place if I did see it."
"How does Craig-Morion strike you?" asked Lady Emma, and the well-bred
indifference of her tone was greatly appreciated by Betty and Eira, who
by this time had labelled the newcomer as "horridly stuck-up and
affected."
"Craig-Morion?" he repeated. "Oh, I think it may serve our purpose very
well for the time. Of course it _should_ have a complete overhauling,
but Morion doesn't think it worth while to do much to it, and,
substantially speaking, it's not in bad repair. I think, however, I
shall be able to report sufficiently well of it to make my sisters--or
sister more probably--come down to see it for themselves."
Even Lady Emma was slightly nettled at his tone of half-contemptuous
approval of the place which to the family at Fir Cottage represented so
much.
"It is a pity," she said, speaking more stiffly than before, "that the
head of the family should never live at what was--is--really their
original home."
Mr Littlewood raised his eyebrows.
"Why should he?" he said carelessly; "he's got everything in the world
he wants at Witham-Meldon and at his Scotch place. He'd feel this
awfully out-of-the-world."
This last speech was too much for the feelings of one person in the
company. Shyness disappeared in indignation, and, to the utter
amazement of her audience, Betty's voice, pitched in a higher key than
usual, broke the silence.
"I think," she said, while a red spot glowed on each cheek, "I think
it's a perfect shame and utterly unfair that any one should own a place
which they never care to see; and of course it is _actually_ unfair, as
everybody knows it should be ours!"
"Betty?" murmured Eira, as if she thought her sister had taken leave of
her senses.
"Betty!" repeated Lady Emma and Frances in varying tones of amazement
and reproof, while Mr Morion and the lawyer abruptly stopped talking,
as they turned round to see what in the world was happening.
Only Mr Littlewood smiled, as he might have done with amusement at a
sudden outburst from a silly child, which stung her still more; and
without vouchsafing another word, she rose quickly and left the room,
followed by the stranger's eyes, while an expression half of perplexity,
half of concern, overspread his face.
"I am afraid," he began, somewhat ruefully, though the smile still
lingered, "I am afraid I have unwittingly annoyed the--the young lady--
your sister, I suppose?" he added to Frances, who had half started up
with the instinctive wish to put things somehow to rights.
"Oh, no," she said, half nervously, far more afraid of the parental
displeasure than caring for what the stranger might think. After all,
his face was pleasant and kindly, and how could he know what the very
name of Craig-Morion meant to _them_? "Oh, no, it won't matter at all.
We are terribly stay-at-home people, you see, and Craig-Morion seems a
sort of earthly Paradise to us!"
"Nonsense, Frances!" said her father harshly. "Betty is a foolish,
spoilt child, and must be treated accordingly. Don't give another
thought to it, Mr Littlewood."
The young man murmured something intended to be gracious, indeed
apologetic, though his words were not clearly heard, and then with a
feeling of relief he turned to Frances with an instinct that here was
the peace-maker.
"You will tell her how sorry I am," he said in a low voice, for the
vision of Betty's troubled little face as she passed him in her swift
transit across the room was not to be quickly banished from his mind's
eye.
Frances nodded slightly with a smile, Lady Emma's attention being by
this time happily distracted by some tactful observation from Mr Milne,
who, to confess the truth, was not a little amused by what had just
passed. And a few moments later the two visitors took their leave, the
old lawyer shaking hands punctiliously with the four members of the
family present; Mr Littlewood contenting himself with a touch of his
hostess' cold fingers, a more cordial clasp of Frances' hand, and a
vague bow in the direction of Eira, still in the sheltered corner so
abruptly deserted by Betty.
Mr Morion accompanied his guests to the hall door, leaving, by his
studied urbanity, the impression in Mr Littlewood's mind that the
master of Fir Cottage was far less of a bear than the lawyer had
depicted him.
This opinion would probably have been modified had he been present at
the scene which ensued in the drawing-room when the head of the house
rejoined his wife and daughters, who listened in silence to his not
altogether unjustifiable irritation against Betty, for as he went on he
worked himself up, as was his way, to exaggerated anger, concluding with
a comprehensive command that, till she could learn to behave properly to
her father's guests, he must insist on Lady Emma's banishing the culprit
to her own quarters when any visitors were present. Not that this
command was in reality as severe as it sounded, judging at least by past
experiences at Fir Cottage, where visitors were scarcely if ever to be
found, and the deprivation of seeing such as on rare occasions were
admitted was certainly not what Betty would have considered a
punishment.
Poor Betty! punishment indeed was little needed by her at the present
time. Up in the room which she shared with Eira, she was lying
prostrate on her little bed, sobbing as if her heart would break, with a
rush of mingled feelings such as she had never before experienced to the
same extent.
There was reaction from the pleasurable excitement of a break in their
monotonous life, indignation at the manner and bearing of "that
detestable man;" worst of all, mortification, deep and stinging, at
having behaved, so she phrased it to herself, like "an underbred fool."
Altogether more than the poor child's nerves could stand. And added to
everything else was the fear of what lay before her in the shape of
reproof, cutting and satirical, from her father. She would have given
worlds to undress and go to bed, and thus avoid facing her family with
swollen eyes, from which she felt as if she could never again drive back
the tears.
"How I wish I could leave home for good!" she said to herself. "I don't
believe Frances and Eira would miss me much, and papa would have one
less to scold. At least I wish I could go away just now rather than
risk meeting that man again, and if his people do come here it will be
unendurable. Even if they condescend to be civil to us, there would be
the terrible feeling of being patronised and probably made fun of behind
our backs. It is too late for us to improve now, we are not fit for
decent society; at least Eira and I are not, and poor Frances would
suffer tortures if--"
A knock at the door interrupted the depressing soliloquy.
"Come in," said Betty, hoping that in the gloom her disfigured face
might escape notice, and jumping up as she spoke, she hurried across to
the dressing-table, where she pretended to be busying herself in
rearranging her hair.
It was Frances who came in. For the first moment Betty felt
disappointed that it was not Eira, but when the kind elder sister came
forward and threw her arms round her, saying tenderly and yet with a
little smile:
"My poor, silly little Betty, this is what I was afraid of. You really
_mustn't_ take it to heart in this way. You poor little things making
yourselves look so nice, and for it to end like this, though after all
it is more to be laughed at than cried over."
"No, no, it isn't, Francie," sobbed Betty, hiding her face on her
sister's shoulder. "I've disgraced myself and all of us, and it's no
good your trying to say I haven't. I don't know what came over me to
say what I did."
"I think it was not unnatural," said Frances; "even mamma was slightly
ruffled by Mr Littlewood's tone, and yet--I'm _quite_ sure he didn't in
the least mean to hurt us. How could he? We are complete strangers to
him, and we were doing our best to be hospitable and--and nice. And--he
has a good sort of face, and kind, straightforward eyes, in spite of
his--I scarcely know what to call it--ultra-fashionableness, which seems
to us like affectation."
Betty was interested, in spite of herself, by her sister's comments.
"All _I_ feel," she said, "is the most earnest hope that we may never
see him again, and that his people will not take Craig-Morion."
"Come now, Betty, don't be exaggerated," said Frances. "By the way, he
left a message with me for you: it was to say that he was _very_ sorry
if he had annoyed you, and he said it so simply that it made me like him
better than I had done before; and he took care that no one else should
hear it, which was thoughtful too."
"I don't see that it much matters," answered Betty, too proud to show
that she was a little mollified, in spite of herself. "Heaven knows
_what_ I'm not going to have to bear from papa."
"Well, dear," said Frances, "you must just bear it as philosophically as
you can. It may be a good lesson in self-restraint. And after all
there is _no_ lesson of more importance. I don't agree with you in
hoping that we may never see this Mr Littlewood again; on the contrary,
far the best thing would be to get to know him a little better, so that
any sore feeling you have--"
"Any sore feeling indeed!" interrupted Betty, with a groan, "I'm sore
feeling from top to toe. It seems as if I should scarcely mind what
papa says in comparison with this wretched hateful disgust at having
lowered myself so."
Frances smiled.
"That _will_ all soften down," she said, "see if it doesn't; and perhaps
papa won't be so down upon you as you expect."
Nor was this encouragement without grounds, for in the interval between
his first burst of irritation and Frances' seeking her sister, Lady Emma
had exerted herself with some success to smoothing down Mr Morion's
displeasure, reminding him that Betty's family feeling could scarcely be
called ill-bred, and that it had evidently had no ill effect upon their
guest, whose tone had struck herself at first as deficient in deference.
For Betty, as has been said, was her mother's favourite.
On the whole, Frances' words had a soothing effect on her sister.
"Oh well, I must just bear it, I suppose, even if he is very down upon
me, for this time I can't say that I was blameless, and, compared to the
terrible feeling as to what that man must think of me, it doesn't seem
to matter. Oh, Frances, how I do hope and pray those people won't come
down here! And only a few hours ago I should have been so disappointed
at the idea of the whole thing falling through. Frances," she went on
again after a moment or two's silence, "do you know I don't believe they
_would_ come if they knew everything."
Frances looked slightly annoyed.
"I wish, dear," she said, "that you and Eira wouldn't let your minds run
so constantly on that old grievance. We are not in Italy, where
vendettas go on from generation to generation; and what _would_ the
Littlewoods care as to whom the place should rightly belong?"
"I don't mean that," said Betty. "Of course, how could that matter to
them? I was thinking of," and here involuntarily she dropped her voice
and gave a half-timorous glance over her shoulder, "what they say about
here of the big house--about, you know, Frances, great-grand-aunt
Elizabeth's `walking,' as the country people call it."
The cloud on her sister's brow deepened. "Betty, you promised me, you
know you did," she said, "both you and Eira promised me, that you would
leave off thinking of that silly nonsense."
"I know we did," said Betty meekly. "I'm sure I don't want to talk
about it; the very mention of her name frightens me. I do so wish it
wasn't mine! For it gives me a feeling as if she had something special
to do with me. All the same, I shouldn't be a bit sorry if that Mr
Littlewood got a good fright," and her eyes twinkled, in spite of their
swollen lids. "If it's true that she repents of her negligence, if
negligence it was, she certainly can't feel pleased at being disturbed
by any one connected with the elder branch of the family!"
"I had no idea you were so vindictive, Betty," said Frances; "but I'm
afraid it's not likely that our poor old great-grand-aunt would have
power to oust either him or his people from her old home."