A REASONABLE PROPOSITION
"You'll come, too, Georgiana dear?" Jeannette, furrily clad for a walk
with James Stuart, stood in the doorway looking back. "Please do."
"Come, George;--you need a good tramp," Stuart urged at Jeannette's
elbow.
He looked the picture of anticipation. He had undertaken getting the
visitor into training by increasingly long daily walks, and the result
was proving eminently satisfactory. At the end of the first half of the
visit Jeannette was looking wonderfully well and happy--hardly the same
girl who had come to the little village to try if she could endure such
life as was likely to be offered her there.
"Thank you, my dears, nothing could persuade me. Run along and leave me
to diversions of my own," answered Georgiana gayly.
So they had gone, Jeannette wafting back a kiss, Stuart waving an
enthusiastic arm. Georgiana had smiled at them, had closed the door
softly behind them--and had immediately banged to another conveniently
near at hand, one opening into a small clothespress under the stair
landing.
"Diversions of my own!" she repeated with emphasis. "Happy phrase! I
wonder what they think my diversions are--with this family to look
after. Well, you got yourself into it, George Warne. You can stick it
out if it kills you."
She deliberately thumped one door after another all the way along her
progress through the empty rooms and up the stairs to the second floor.
Her father was away for the afternoon on a rare visit to a neighbour who
had sent for him, an old parishioner, who, falling ill, longed for the
gentle offices of his friend and long-time minister. As for Mr.
Jefferson, this was the time of day when he was always away on his usual
long walk. It was a comfort to be alone in the quiet house--and to
bang and thump.
In her room Georgiana arrayed herself in a heavy red sweater, then
ascended to the attic and stood eying the great hand loom of antique
pattern, a relic of an earlier century. It was equipped with a black
warp, upon which a few rows of parti-coloured woof had been woven.
"Diversions!" she repeated, and shook her round fist at the lumbering
object.
Then she sat down on the old weaver's bench and began to weave with
heavy, jarring thuds which shook the floor, as with strong arms she
pulled and pushed and sent her clumsy shuttle flying back and forth.
The attic was very cold; but she was soon warm with the violent exercise
and presently had discarded the sweater and was working away with might
and main.
"Go at it--go at it!" she was saying to herself. "Jealous idiot that you
are! Jealous of Jeannette, of her clothes, her money, her beauty, her power
to attract--jealous because Jimps likes her so well--because Father Davy
looks at her with the eyes of an appreciative uncle--because Mr. E. C.
Jefferson talks to her as if he enjoyed it. Pound--pound--pound away at
the old loom till your arms ache, and see if you can get the nonsense
out of you!"
"I beg your pardon," said a deep voice at the top of the narrow stairs
not far away.
The loom stopped with a jerk as the weaver flashed round upon the head
and shoulders protruding above the rafters. "Oh! I'm sorry! Did I
disturb you?" cried Georgiana, fire in her voice. She did not look in
the least sorry. "I thought you were out, too. And I'm just over your
head. Of course you came up to----"
"No, I didn't," replied Mr. Jefferson. He ascended two steps more,
looking curiously at the loom "I came up because I thought something
extraordinary had happened up here and I ought to find out about it."
"Nothing extraordinary, merely something very ordinary. I do this
whenever I have time and the coast is clear. You usually go out at this
hour," she said accusingly.
"So I do. I came back just now, when I saw Miss Crofton and Mr. Stuart
starting off alone, in hopes that you might consent to go with me. It's
a great day. Won't you?"
"Thank you, no," the girl replied. "I'm behind with my work. These rugs
are orders very much overdue. I've been rather delayed lately, since my
machine is so noisy I can't work when anybody is on the second floor."
"Please never mind me," urged her visitor. "I can time my work to fit in
with yours, if you need to make haste. But that must be a rather
strenuous business. It's a very old affair, isn't it? Do you mind if I
look at it? I never saw one of just that pattern."
"I mind very much," replied Georgiana crisply, moving off the bench and
standing on the floor. "But that's no reason why you shouldn't examine
the Monster if you like. That's what I call it. I'll run down and be
back when you are through."
And this she would have done, but that he barred her way.
"But I won't," he said gravely, "if you prefer that I should not. Come
back, please! I'm intruding, and I'll apologize and go."
The light from a dusty attic window fell full on her face as she stood,
and he saw that in it which made him look again.
"Miss Warne," he said gently, "something is wrong, I'm afraid. Can't I
be of use to you in some way? The reason I wanted to look at this loom
was that I saw your last two strokes with the bar as I came up, and I
recognized what a tremendous push you had to give. I'm something of a
mechanic and I wondered if I couldn't do a bit of oiling, perhaps, to
make it easier. I'm afraid it's tiring you unduly."
"I need to be tired," she said, low but vehemently. "I'm in a black
mood, and the more I tire myself the quicker I shall get the better of
it. Now you know. I suppose you never have black moods."
"Do I not? So black that I could grind myself under my own heel. Do you
have them, too? I might have known by the look of you."
"You don't look as if you ever had them," she said rather curiously, her
eyes on his quiet face.
"Ah, you can't always tell--luckily. It's pretty cold up here. Are you
sure you wouldn't do better to take a run in the wind with me? You know
somehow heavy tasks look lighter after a breath of outdoor air."
"So you know what heavy tasks are?" For the life of her she could not
resist the question.
He looked steadily back at her, smiling a little. His eyes were very
clear in their quiet scrutiny. She felt as if he saw much that she would
prefer to conceal. "I have known a few that seemed to me fairly heavy at
the time," he said. "Afterward, I was thankful to have had them--to
prepare me for heavier ones."
"Oh--but they weren't the same dismal round----"
"Weren't they? Most tasks are. But I never had one quite like this. I am
concerned for you, lest this prove too heavy. Now that I am here--do you
really mind so very much if I look the machine over?"
She permitted it, and she did not run away as she had meant to do.
Presently he asked for a screw-driver and a can of oil, and when she had
procured them he did a number of things to the cumbersome loom, the
result of which, when she attacked it once more, proved that he had
relieved to a certain extent the hardest of her efforts.
"But it is still much too severe for any woman," he said seriously,
standing, oil can in hand, a little lock of hair, shaken down by his
labours, straying across his forehead. "Please tell me, and don't think
me merely curious--is there no way in which you can add to your
resources except this? You have a college training----"
"And no way whatever to make use of it," she exclaimed with some
bitterness. "But I can weave, and I have a feeling for colour and form
and can work out effects which find a market. Hand-woven rugs bring
their price these days. Really, Mr. Jefferson, I am no subject for pity
and----"
"You don't want it. Let me assure you that I don't feel a particle. To
be young and strong and fit for hard work is no cause for pity. But--I
have reason for persisting in my inquiry. You see, I happen to know of
some one in need of such training as you undoubtedly have. Would you
consider giving a few hours daily to one who needs a copyist and
critic?"
Georgiana scanned his face with intent, incredulous eyes. Then, "Do you
mean yourself?" she questioned.
"I mean myself. I hesitate to mention that I am the candidate, knowing
that that admission must instantly create a prejudice against me." He
was smiling a little. "But I state an actual fact. I have reached a
point in my labours where I need a copyist. Do you think it possible
that I may secure one without sending away for her?"
"I must suspect you," she said slowly and with rising colour, "of
manufacturing a need. It is very, very kind of you, Mr. Jefferson--but I
think I must continue to weave my rugs."
"But I am not manufacturing a need," he insisted. "I declare to you that
I have been on the point of consulting you for some time. If it had not
been that your days seemed very full with your guest and your
housewifery, I should have put it to you before now. I am in earnest,
Miss Warne. Won't you, as a matter of everyday business, lend me your
eyes and your hand--and your critical judgment? If you can't do it while
Miss Crofton is here, may I engage your spare time after she goes?
Please don't deny me." He began to descend the stairs. "I won't stay for
an answer," he said. "Think it over, will you? And please don't refuse
until you have consulted your father."
"Why do you ask that?"
"Because I know he will look at it as any man would, without
unreasonable prejudice against accepting a business proposition simply
because it happens to come from a temporary member of the household. It
takes a woman to bother about that."
With this straight shot he left her, laughing back at her as he
descended in a way that went far toward disarming her, though she would
not at once admit it. Instead, she went back to her loom, putting into
the next section of weaving a quite unnecessary amount of force purely
from tension of mind over the possibilities opened up by this most
unexpected offer. There was no denying that it was precisely the sort of
thing which she had often longed to do, and for which, she knew, as he
had suggested, she was more than ordinarily well fitted. It was
impossible, as she had said, not to suspect the lodger of creating a
want to fit her need of earning money, yet there could be no doubt of
the fact that any writer of books who draws upon all manner of collected
notes and reference books for his material must be able to make valuable
use of an assistant in a variety of ways.
Why should she not take him at his word? Well, she would think of it.
And meanwhile--suddenly--the black mood was gone!