MR. WEDMORE'S SECOND FREAK.
Even if Max had not had such an ugly experience of the ways of Mrs.
Higgs, even if this meeting with her in the barn had been his first, his
sensations would hardly have been agreeable ones. There was something
uncanny about the old woman, something which her quiet, shuffling
movements and her apparent lack of interest in what went on around her
only served to accentuate. Even now, while suffering the shock of a
great surprise, Max could feel rather than see the effect which the
unexpected meeting had upon her.
For she uttered no cry, no word; her eyes scarcely opened wider than
before. Her jaw dropped a little, and then began to move rapidly up and
down; that was all. And yet, as Max looked at her--at this helpless,
infirm old creature with the palsied hands and the lackluster eyes--he
shivered.
"You vile old hag!" thought he to himself. And then his thoughts flew to
Carrie, and he asked himself what the attraction could be which bound
her to this wicked old woman.
Mrs. Higgs, after staring at him in dead silence for what seemed a long
time, asked, as composedly as if their meeting had been the most natural
thing in the world:
"Where's your friend, young man?"
"W--what friend?" stammered Max.
"Oh, you don't know, I suppose!" retorted Mrs. Higgs, derisively. "No
more than you know what you wanted to come spying about Plumtree Wharf
for, eh?"
Max made no answer. There came a vixenish gleam into the old woman's
faded eyes.
"What did you come for, eh?" pursued she, sharply. "Who sent you? Not
he, I know! When he's got anything to do at the wharf he comes himself."
And Mrs. Higgs gave an ugly, mirthless chuckle.
As Max stared at the withered, lined face, which was growing each moment
more repulsive in his eyes, a feeling of horror and of intense pity for
Dudley seized him. To be pursued, as his friend evidently was pursued,
by this vicious old hag, was a fate hideous enough to expiate every
crime in the Decalogue.
A little rapid reflection made him decide that a bold course of defiance
was the best to be taken. Whatever Dudley might have done, and whatever
terrors Mrs. Higgs might hold over his head, it was very certain, after
all, that the evidence of such a creature, living in such an underground
fashion, could never be a serious danger to a man in his position.
Dudley himself seemed rather to have lost sight of this fact, certainly;
but it could not be less than a fact for all that.
"Mr. Horne is not likely to trouble you or the rest of the thieves at
the wharf again," said Max, with decision. "He's gone abroad for a
holiday. And if you don't take yourself off at once, or if you turn up
here again, or if you attempt to annoy us or Mr. Horne, in any way
whatever, you'll find the police at your heels before you know where you
are."
Then into her dull eyes there came a look of malignity which made Max
doubt whether he had done well to be so bold.
"Thieves, eh? Tell your friend we're thieves, and see what he says to
that! Police, eh? Tell your friend _that_, tell your friend
_that_, and see whether he'll thank you for your interference!"
"Mr. Horne is away, as I told you."
"Away, is he? But he won't be away long. Oh, no; he'll come back--he'll
come back. Or if he doesn't," added Mrs. Higgs, with complacency, "I'll
fetch him."
"Well, you've got to leave this place at once," said Max, with decision.
"We don't allow strangers in the barn, and if you don't go quietly at
once, I must send somebody to turn you out."
Mrs. Higgs kept her eyes fixed upon him with her usual blank stare while
he said this in a very loud and decided tone. When he had finished she
suddenly blew out the light with so much unnecessary force that Max felt
something like a gust of wind upon his face.
"Turn me out!" and she laughed harshly. "Turn me out! Send for the
police to do it, if you like."
Max went out of the barn, listening to her cackling laugh, and not
feeling comfortable until he had found his way into the open air. He at
once gave orders to the stablemen and gardeners to search the barn and
to turn out the strangers they might find there.
But though they hunted in every corner, they found no one, and Max was
only too glad to come to the conclusion that Mrs. Higgs had taken his
advice, and got away with as little delay as possible.
This incident, however, following so closely on the heels of his
experiences at the wharf, took away all the zest with which Max should
have entered into the programme which, by Mr. Wedmore's special wish,
had been prepared for that evening; and while Doreen and Queenie and
Mildred Appleby and two young nephews of Mr. Wedmore's chattered and
laughed, and made dinner a very lively affair, Max was quiet and what
his cousins called "grumpy," and threatened to be a wet blanket on the
evening's entertainment.
"Going to have all the servants in to dance Sir Roger!" cried he, in
dismay, when Doreen told him the news. "Good heavens! Hasn't he had a
lesson in yesterday's tomfoolery and what came of it? How do the
servants like the idea?"
"Of course they hate it," answered Doreen, "and mamma has been all day
trying to coax the cook to indulge him, and not to walk off and leave us
to cook the Christmas dinner. And, of course, this assurance that the
notion was distasteful to everybody had made papa more obstinate than
ever. Oh, we shall have a merry time."
Now, down in the depths of his heart Mr. Wedmore had begun to feel some
misgivings about his plans for keeping Christmas in the good old
fashion. But the first failure, the colossal mistake of the Yule Log,
had made him obstinate instead of yielding, and he had set his teeth and
made up his mind that they should all be merry in the way he chose, or
they should not be merry at all.
The fact was that this prosaic middle-aged gentleman, who had passed the
greater part of his life immersed in day-books and ledgers and the
details of a busy city man's life, found time hang heavy on his hands in
these prosperous days of his retirement, and in this condition he had
had his mind inflamed by pictures of the life that was led in The
Beeches by his forerunners, easy-going, hard-riding, hard-drinking
country gentlemen, with whom, if the truth were known, he had nothing in
common.
Fired by the desire to live the life they led, to enjoy it in the
pleasant old fashion, it had seemed to him an especially happy custom to
give a dance at which masters and servants should join hands and make
merry together. He had never assisted at one of these balls, and he
refused to listen to his wife's suggestion that it should take place in
the servants' hall, that the servants should be allowed to invite their
own friends, and that the family should limit itself to one brief dance
with their dependants and then leave them to enjoy themselves in their
own way.
No, it was his will that the dance should be held in the hall of the
house, and that the pictures of the Illustrated Christmas Numbers should
be realized to the utmost.
Dinner, therefore, was scrambled over in a hurry, and the family with
their guests went upstairs to the drawing-room or out to the
billiard-room, while preparations were made for the great event of the
evening, the lighting of the Yule Log and Sir Roger de Coverley.
Then the first mishap occurred in the inopportune arrival of the Rev.
Lisle Lindsay, whose rather sedate and solemn appearance cast a slight
gloom upon everybody's spirits, which deepened when Queenie whispered to
Mildred that he looked upon dancing as a frivolous and worldly amusement
scarcely to be tolerated and never to be encouraged.
He soon made an opportunity of devoting himself to Doreen, who was
playing the lightest of light music at the piano in the corner of the
room.
It had been a fancy of Mr. Wedmore's, who had his own way in everything
with his wife, to have this drawing-room, which was large and square and
lighted by five windows, three at the front and two at the side,
furnished entirely with old things of the style of eighty years back,
with Empire chairs, sofas and cabinets, as little renovated as possible.
The effect was quaint and not unpleasing; a little cold, perhaps, but
picturesque and graceful.
The grand piano had a case specially made for it, painted a dull
sage-green and finished in a manner to give it a look of the less
massive harpsichord.
It was at this instrument that Doreen sat, making a very pretty picture
in her white silk, square-necked frock, with bands of beaver fur on the
bodice and sleeves and an edging of the same fur round the bottom of the
skirt.
"My purpose in coming here to-night, Miss Wedmore," said Mr. Lindsay,
when he had delivered an unimportant message from the vicar's wife about
the church decorations, "was really to bring you my good wishes for this
blessed season. I am afraid I shall have no opportunity of speaking to
you to-morrow, though, of course, I shall see you in the church."
"Oh, yes, we shall all be at church," said Doreen, quickly.
She noted something rather unusual in the curate's manner--a nervous
excitement which presaged danger; and she dashed into an air from "The
Shop-Girl" with an energy which was meant to have the effect of checking
his solemn ardor.
But the curate had the stuff of a man in him, and did not mean to be put
off. This opportunity was really a good one, for the talk in the room,
which his arrival had checked for an instant, was now going on merrily.
Mrs. Wedmore did her best to keep up the conversation. Nothing would
have pleased her better than to see Doreen transfer her tender feeling
for the discredited Dudley to such a suitable and irreproachable person
as Lisle Lindsay. She kept a hopeful eye on the pair at the piano while
she went on talking to her husband's old friend, Mrs. Hutchinson, who
was staying with them for Christmas.
"And at the same time," went on Mr. Lindsay, as he moved his chair a
little nearer, so that, under cover of the music, he could speak without
being overheard, "to speak to you on a subject which is--is--in fact,
very near my heart."
This was worse than Doreen had expected. She glanced round at him with
rather a frightened expression. "Oh, don't let us talk about
anything--anything serious now," said she. "Just when we shall be going
downstairs to--to dance--in a few minutes."
It was a very inconsequent objection to make, and Mr. Lindsay simply
ignored it.
"It is, in fact, about myself that I wish to speak, Miss Wedmore," he
pursued relentlessly. "You cannot have failed to notice what a--what a
deep interest I take in all that concerns you. And latterly I have
flattered myself that--"
"But people should never flatter themselves about anything!" cried
Doreen, desperately, as she suddenly laid her hands in her lap and
turned from the piano to face the worst. "Now I'll give you an example.
I flattered myself a little while ago that a man cared a great deal
about me--a man I cared a great deal for myself. And all the while he
didn't; or, at least, I am afraid he didn't. And yet, you know, I can't
help hoping that perhaps I didn't only flatter myself, after all; that
perhaps he will come back some day and tell me I was right."
Mr. Lindsay heard her in silence, with his mild eyes fixed on the
carpet. But when she had finished he looked up again, and she was
shocked to find that the gentle obstinacy which had been in his face
before was there still.
"I am, indeed, sorry for your disappointment," he said sweetly. "Or
rather I should be if it were such a one that you could not hope
to--to--in fact, to get over it. But--but these are trials which may be,
perhaps, only sent to show that you, even you, happily placed as you are
and gifted of the Almighty, are human, after all, and not beyond
suffering. And--and it may give you an opportunity of seeing that there
are others who can appreciate you better, and who would only be too glad
to--to--to--"
"To step into his shoes!" finished Doreen for him, with a sigh. "I know
what you were going to say, and if you won't be stopped, I suppose I
must hear you out. But, oh, dear, I do wish you wouldn't!"
He was not to be put off like that. In fact, he was not to be put off by
any available means. He sighed a little, and persisted.
"I am glad you have guessed what I was going to say, Miss Wedmore,
though I should not have put it quite in that way. And why should you
not want to hear it? I should have thought that even you must be not
quite indifferent to any man's honest feelings of esteem and admiration
toward you!"
Doreen was looking at him helplessly, with wide-open eyes. Did he really
think any girl was ever moved by this sort of address, deliberately
uttered, with the words well chosen, well considered? As different as
possible from the abrupt, staccato method used by Dudley in the dear old
days!
"Oh, I'm not indifferent at all!" said she, quickly. "I'm never
indifferent to anything or anybody. But I'm sorry, very sorry that--that
you should feel--"
She stopped short, looked at him for a moment curiously, and asked with
great abruptness:
"_Do_ you feel anything in the matter? _Really_ feel, I mean?
I don't think you do; I don't think you can. You couldn't speak so
_nicely_, if you did."
He looked at her with gentle reproach. His was not a very tempestuous
feeling, perhaps, but it was genuine, honest, sincere. He thought her
the most splendid specimen of handsome, healthy well-brought-up
womanhood he had ever met, and he thought also that the beneficent
influence of the Church, exercised through the unworthy medium of
himself, would mold her into a creature as near perfection as was
humanly possible.
Her way of receiving his advances was perplexing. He was not easily
disconcerted, but he did not answer her immediately. Then he said
softly:
"How could I speak in any way but what you call 'nicely' to _you_? To
the lady whom I am asking to be my wife?"
Doreen looked startled.
"Oh, don't, please! You don't know what a mistake you're making. I'm not
at all the sort of wife for you, really! Indeed, I couldn't recommend
myself as a wife to anybody, but especially to you."
"Why--especially to me?"
"Well, I'm not good enough."
"That sounds rather flattering. And yet, somehow, I don't fancy you mean
it to be so."
"Well, no, I don't," said Doreen, frankly; "for I mean by 'good' a lot
of qualities that I don't think highly of myself, such as getting up in
the middle of the night to go to early service, and being civil to
people I hate, and--and a lot of things like that. Don't you know that
I'm eminently deficient in all the Christian virtues?"
This was a question the curate had never asked himself; but it came upon
him at this moment with disconcerting force that she was right. Luckily
for his self-esteem, it did not occur to him at the same time that it
was this very lack of the conventional virtues, a certain freshness and
originality born of her defiant neglect of them, which formed the
stronger part of her attractiveness in his eyes.
After a short pause he answered, with his usual deliberation:
"Indeed, I am quite sure that you do yourself injustice."
"Oh, but I'm equally sure that I don't. I not only leave undone the
things which you would say I ought to do, and do the things which I
ought not to do, but I'm rather proud of it."
Still, Mr. Lindsay would not accept the repulse. He persisted in making
excuses for her and in believing them.
"Well, you fulfill your most important duty; you are the happiness and
the brightness of the house. Your father's face softens whenever you
come near him. Now, as that is your chief duty, and you fulfill it so
well, I am quite sure that if you entered another state of life where
your duties would be different, you would accommodate yourself, you
would fulfill your new duties as well as you did the old."
Doreen rewarded him for this speech with a humorous look, in which there
was something of gratitude, but more of rebellion.
"Accommodate myself? No, I couldn't. I think, do you know, that if I
were ever foolish enough to marry--and it would be foolishness in a
spoiled creature like me--I should want a husband who could accommodate
himself to me. Now, you couldn't. Clergymen never accommodate themselves
to anything or anybody."
The Reverend Lisle Lindsay did at last look rather disconcerted.
Mischievous Doreen saw her triumph and made the most of it.
"So that settles the matter, doesn't it? I can't accommodate myself; you
can't either. What could possibly come of a union like that?"
"The greatest happiness this world is capable of affording, and the hope
of a happiness more abiding hereafter," said he; "all the happiness that
a true woman can bring to the man she loves."
Doreen threw up her head quickly.
"Ah! that's just it," cried she. "'To the man she loves!' But you are
not the man I love, Mr. Lindsay. I suppose it's one of the things I
ought not to do--one of the unconventional and so unchristian things--to
own that I love a man who doesn't love me. But I do. Now, you know who
it is, and everybody knows; but, for all that, you mustn't tell; you
must keep it as a secret that Doreen Wedmore--proud, stuck-up Doreen--is
breaking her heart for the sake of a man who--who--" Her voice broke and
she paused for a moment to recover herself; then she said, in a lighter
tone: "Ah, well, we mustn't be hard upon him, either, for we don't
know--it's so difficult to know."
She sprang up from her seat; and the curate rose too. By her tactful
mention of her own unlucky love she had softened the blow of her
rejection of him. She had been rather too kind indeed, considering the
tenacity of the person she had to deal with; for the curate considered
his case by no means so hopeless as it was; and instead of taking
himself off forlornly, as she would have wished, he stayed on until the
young men swarmed up from the billiard-room and bore the whole party
down to the hall.
Mr. Wedmore, in great glee at having carried his point in the face of
the family resistance, led Mrs. Hutchinson down stairs, and then handed
her over to Max, while he himself threw open the door leading to the
servants' quarters, and invited the group of neat maids and stalwart
young men from the garden and stable to enter.
But here there was a hitch in the arrangements. The cook, in a bad
temper, smarting with disapproval of the whole business, had refused to
join the others, and, as nothing could be done without her, Mr. Wedmore
had to penetrate into the servants' hall, where he found her sitting in
state, and, luckily, dressed for the occasion.
Never in his life had Mr. Wedmore exerted himself so much to please any
woman as he now did to soften the outraged feelings of the cook, who was
a stout, red-faced woman, whose days of comeliness and charm were long
since gone by. He at last succeeded in inducing her to accompany him to
the hall, where he arrived in triumph, with a flushed face and nervous
manner, after an interval which had been put to great advantage by the
younger gentlemen of the party, who were all anxious to dance with the
prettiest housemaid.
Their eagerness had the effect of annoying the rest of the maids, and
effectually spoiling whatever enjoyment they might have got out of the
dance in the circumstances, while it by no means pleased the ladies of
the family and their friends, who stood a little apart and whispered to
each other that this sort of thing was bound to be a failure, and why
couldn't papa, dear old, stupid papa, leave _them_ out of the affair,
and let the boys have a romp in the servants' hall without their
assistance?
The pause had made the ladies so frigid and the men-servants so shy, the
pretty housemaid so merry and the plain ones so solemn, that disaster
threatened the gathering, when Mr. Wedmore and the cook made their
opportune appearance.
Max, his cousins and young Hutchinson gave three cheers, in the midst of
which demonstration the Rev. Lisle Lindsay endeavored to make his escape
by the front door.
Unhappily, Mr. Wedmore, elated by his victory over the cook, espied him,
and straightway forbade him to leave the house until after "Sir Roger."
In vain the curate protested; pleaded the privileges and exemptions of
his sacred calling.
Mr. Wedmore was obdurate; and, to the disgust of everybody, including
himself, the Rev. Lisle Lindsay found himself told off to dance with the
pretty housemaid, being the only man in the room who was not anxious for
the honor.
This mishap cast a gloom over the proceedings. The rest of the gentlemen
found it hard to extract a word from the other maids, who all considered
themselves slighted. And Mr. Wedmore had great difficulty in persuading
the men-servants to come forward and take their places by the partners
he chose for them. To get them to choose for themselves was out of the
question, after one young gardener had availed himself of the invitation
by darting across the floor and asking Miss Queenie, in a hoarse voice
and with many blushes, if she would dance with him.
Of course, this piece of daring made a sensation so great that to get
another man follow the bold example was impossible.
In the end, Mrs. Wedmore found a partner in the coachman, who was a
portly and solemn person, with no talents in the way of dancing or of
conversation. Doreen danced with the butler, who, between nervousness
and gloom, found it impossible to conceal his opinion that master was
making a fool of himself; and the rest of the company being quite as ill
matched, "Sir Roger" was performed with little grace and less
liveliness, while the Yule Log, after emitting a great deal of smoke,
sputtered out into blackness, to everybody's relief.
The end of it was, however, a little better than the beginning. As the
dancers warmed to their work, their latent enthusiasm for the exercise
was awakened; and "Sir Roger" was kept up until the fingers of the
organist, who had been engaged to play for them on a piano placed in a
corner of one of the passages, ached with the cold and with the hard
work.
When the dance was over and the party had broken up, Doreen, who had
done her best to keep up the spirits of the rest, broke down. Max met
her on her way to her room, and saw that the tears were very near her
eyes.
"What's the matter now?" said he, crossly. "You seemed all right
downstairs. I thought you and Lindsay seemed to be getting on very well
together."
"Did you? Well, you were wrong," said she, briefly, as she shut herself
into the room.