THINGS THAT HE LEARNED
1.
Edmund had gone back to Halifax.
On the whole Derek was not sorry, for he had felt Edmund’s presence as a
restraint, if not an actual rebuke. Fawnie’s table manners had offended
Edmund, also her untidy finery, and her habit of popping morsels of food
into the baby’s mouth at meal-time which, often as not, he put out again
to hang on the frill of his bib. When Edmund had met Derek coming out of
Fawnie’s room he had turned his face away with a frown; more than once
he had commented on Derek’s carelessness in dress, and his need of a
respectable haircut. Now he was gone, and Derek felt that this rather
ignoble affair of his marriage might jolt on unhindered to whatever end
might be.
As a matter of fact, he was far from unhappy. Since his meeting with
Grace he enjoyed a new serenity of spirit. Sitting alone on the beach at
night with his pipe, he contemplated the lovely fact that she loved
him—had refused Edmund because of him—perhaps Ramsey.
He would recall the moment when he had stood in the stable watching the
meeting of the two horses, the warmed saddle across his arm. He would
see her on the threshold sweet as the early sunshine. He would feel
again that tremor of joy that had shaken him when they had confessed
their love. He had not met her since, but Mr. Jerrold had been over
several times, and had told of their happy rides along the shore road.
They rode west as a rule, because it pained Grace to pass Durras, and
there was always a struggle with Darby to get him by the gateway which
he still regarded as his own.
Mr. Jerrold had recaptured his old cheerfulness. Things were not so bad
as they might be. He and Gay were tremendously comfortable in the
cottage. Their view was really finer than it had been at the big house.
Gay could hardly tear herself away from her bedroom window at night—sat
there watching the moonlight on the lake instead of going to her bed.
She loved the cottage. She even liked the little stable. Would be out
there first thing in the morning. He believed she was fonder of Darby
than ever, since she had come so near to losing him.
Mr. Jerrold was colouring a meerschaum pipe, and, at different times, he
lovingly displayed to Derek the satisfactory fashion in which it was
adding tint upon tint. He also had given his annual party to the
Mistwell band. Derek and Fawnie had watched the flare of their torches
pass Grimstone as they sat in the basket chairs in the porch. And Mr.
Jerrold had not failed to give the bandsmen their customary present of
money.
“I must dig that twenty-five dollars up,” he had said to his daughter.
“I’ve never disappointed those poor beggars yet, and I shan’t begin now.
I’ll do without something myself.”
Derek was taking a renewed interest in the work of the farm, and he had
a stout ally in Hugh McKay. No fall ploughing thereabout was done more
thoroughly nor finished earlier. As the October nights grew cold, Derek
would sit with him by the kitchen stove and talk fertilizers and manures
by the hour. The little flock of sheep was excellent. One of the
yearling rams had taken a first prize at the Brancepeth Fair. The
handsome son of Gretta van Lowe had taken a second. The apples and pears
had turned out well. There had been very little scabby or stung fruit;
the dealer who bought them had paid cash on the spot. Snailem drudged
steadily along with his hoe, in company with old Peek and two boys from
Mistwell. Derek himself spent long days among the raspberry and
blackberry canes trimming and cultivating. Even Fawnie had come to take
an interest in the poultry. She ran, laughing with joy, to Derek one day
to tell him that, when wandering among the dense and neglected
thimbleberry canes, she had come upon one of the bronze turkey-hens with
ten active poults, graceful and plump as partridges, which were being
reared undisturbed on the sweet dark berries. Derek had left his
cultivating, and together they had crept like children among the prickly
canes, to peer at the elusive little fellows, who one moment would be
swinging gaily on a spray, their great eyes shining, and the next be
hidden, crouching among the leaves, while the mother, her proud head
poised, watched the intruders with vehement disdain.
The white turkey had not been seen for many weeks. It was feared that
she had either been stolen or killed. But one mild, foggy morning Derek
and Fawnie almost stepped on her as she sat on a nest she had hollowed
out for herself in the shelter of a pile of brushwood behind the
orchard. “By George!” said Derek, “She’s at it yet! That bird has been
sitting ever since last spring, and had no luck at all. She’s simply
wearing herself out to no purpose. What shall I do with her?”
“Be rough with her,” advised Fawnie. “Grab her by the neck. Pull some of
her tail feathers out. Give her a good kick an’ bust up her nest.”
Derek took the bird by the neck and lifted her off the nest. “Why, she’s
nothing but skin and feathers,” he said. “Poor thing! and look at that
nest.”
The untidy nest lay before them, broken shells mingled with the clutch
of shiny, stained eggs. Fawnie took up one egg after another and shook
it. “Slop,” she said, curtly.
“This has got to stop,” Derek said. “Throw those pieces of broken bricks
on the eggs and then an armful of brushwood, then I’ll put her down.”
The white hen looked down from Derek’s arms at the demolition of her
hopes. She made no protest, but the pale pink of her wattles took a
deeper hue. She blinked. When all was destroyed Derek set her down. He
did not pull out her tail feathers nor kick her, but he gave her a
shake, and a push with his foot, and said: “Now, be off with you! and
try to think of something besides sitting. There are other things in the
world, believe me.”
She stood poised for a moment on tiptoe, flapping her pale unused wings,
then, with a harsh, croaking cry, she began to run from them into the
fog. An eerie figure, she disappeared into its ready embrace with that
one cry of frustrated instincts. The flock of sheep, suddenly emerging
from nowhere, it seemed, parted their ranks hurriedly to let her past.
It was her last supreme gesture. Derek never saw her again.
2.
Derek’s house was not kept as it had been in Mrs. Machin’s time. Fawnie
had an unbelievable talent for disorder, and, as the baby spent most of
his day in the kitchen, Phœbe allowed her dishes to pile up until the
table and dresser were hidden beneath them. To Derek she seemed always
to be sitting nursing him while he thumped on the table with a spoon or
slobbered over an apple which he gnawed with his four ridiculous
milk-teeth. Often noisy quarrels occurred between mistress and maid.
“Oh, for any sake let me get one thing done before you’re after me about
another!” Phœbe would shout, and she would knock her mop against the
legs of the furniture, and slop dirty water in all directions.
“Phœbe!” Fawnie would cry, “I’ll have Mr. Vale throw you into the street
if you ain’t respecful.”
“The street, indeed! I’d shouldn’t have far to seek for a better
situation than this. I’ve a cousin in Australier that would pay my
passage out to-morrow if I crooked my finger. I’m more than a bit tired
of Canader as it is. If it weren’t for baby. . . .”
Sometimes they were amicable and made huge pots of jam which almost
always boiled over or burned. The baby was given sticky spoons to lick.
One noonday Phœbe bounded in radiant. Vale had come in to dinner, but it
was not ready.
“I’ve been talkin’ over the fence to Bob Gunn,” she announced
breathlessly. “He’s leaving Chard’s to-day. Him and Mr. Chard had a row.
The gulls has et all his fish and he’s blamed Bob for it. I heard them
mewling and whimpering at daybreak this morning. There’s been a terrible
to-do. Ho! ho! I’d ha’ given a month’s wage to see Mr. Chard’s face.”
She danced a few roystering steps in her red woollen slippers.
“Whatever is she talking about?” Derek turned to Hugh.
Hugh was smiling broadly. “It happened like this, sir. Mr. Chard had
bought a catch of some wee fish that’s no much guid from the Mistwell
fishermen. They ca’ them moon-eyes, I think. He’d got a waggon-load to
use as fertilizer on his strawberry beds. Bob put the horses away and
left the waggon standin’ by the beds, ready to begin spreading this
morn. When daylight came a gull spied the lot and flew off to tell his
friends. The whole flock came. I haird them makin’ a great noise mysel’
when my head was still under the blanket. Every gull grabbed a fish and
then anither. Ye can picture how they’d circle and swoop. When Chaird
came hurrying from his bed there wasna so much as a scale in the
waggon.”
“And there was the gulls overhead laughin’ to split their sides,” cried
Phœbe.
“And all the wee fish in their maws,” added Hugh.
Derek smiled, not without malice. “I should like to have seen that,” he
said. “So Gunn is to leave?”
“Ay. He’d like to come back here, I believe.”
“After the kicking I gave him? He’s a hardy socialist.”
“I dinna think your kicks made him sae sore as Chaird’s continuous
pricks and jibes.”
“Well, I won’t take him back.”
“We won’t,” put in Fawnie, “have any help here that’s saucy or lazy. Get
about your work, Phœbe. I don’t pay you for hangin’ over the back fence,
gossipin’. Get the meat out of the oven before it’s black, and stew the
tea.”
Matters between Fawnie and Phœbe were bound to come to a head. They did
so with calamitous force and abruptness.
Derek never discovered what the quarrel was about. The breaking of the
spout off a teapot was mentioned, also the alienating of Buckskin’s
affections. He had kicked and screamed when his mother had picked him
up, and had held supplicating arms out to Phœbe. Derek heard the torrent
of words as he neared the house. The maid was in the kitchen, the
mistress in the dining-room, and they hurled abuse through the
intervening pantry, with a ferocity only ended by Phœbe’s going into
hysterics and Fawnie’s snatching up the bread-knife.
Derek took the knife from her, and, turning it about, gave her knuckles
a smart rap with the handle. He then hustled her into the hallway and
locked the door upon her. He realized then that she had tried to bite
him, and he had a sudden desire to follow her and give her the whipping
she deserved. Instead, he listened to what was going on in the kitchen.
He could hear gurgling moans, then a splash of water, splutterings, and
Phœbe’s voice—“She’ll kill me. Oh, take me away! Take me away!”
Then Snailem’s voice came—“Another spell like that and I wouldn’t give
a brass fardin’ fur her.”
“Are ye better, my dear?” from Hugh.
“Ay. But keep her offen me.”
Derek listened, pale and disturbed. He would lock Fawnie up, sooner than
let Hugh and Phœbe go. After a bit Hugh rapped at the door, and at
Derek’s bidding, entered.
“We’re off, sir,” he said. “We’ll bide here in this house no longer.”
“Hugh,” said Derek, quietly, “you don’t know what you’re saying. Phœbe
has got you excited. She’ll be herself again shortly.”
“No,” replied Hugh, doggedly. “We’re quittin’. I saw an advairtissment
in the paper yesterday for man and wife on a farm in the Saskatchewan.
We’ll get married and go straight out there. If it’s no that job it’ll
be anither. I’ve had the West in mind for some time. This is no place
for Phœbe. Mrs. Vale is always after her.”
“Think it over, Hugh. You’ll feel different to-morrow.”
“I’ll no!” shouted Hugh. “We want our wage, and we’re quittin’!”
“Well, quit, and be damned to you,” said Derek, shortly. “You can catch
the afternoon train to York. Go on that.”
Hugh stalked from the room. He and Phœbe began to gather together their
belongings in the kitchen. Tin trunks were shifted about upstairs.
Snailem washed, and dressed, and brought Mike harnessed to the
fruit-waggon to the side door. He and Hugh carried down the boxes, Phœbe
following, her head bent, and an hysterical smile on her face. She
looked so different in her checked ulster and green velvet hat that she
seemed a stranger. Hugh’s well-knit figure was clad in a decent blue
serge suit, and he wore a cloth cap, well pulled down. He smoked
continuously, as though to brace himself, not even relinquishing his
“fag” when Derek handed him his cheque.
“I’m sorry to part with you this way, Hugh,” said Derek.
“Ay,” muttered Hugh, and turned away.
He got into the waggon and sat on one of the boxes, while Phœbe settled
herself with Snailem on the seat.
3.
The cows left the shore meadow where they had been pastured, and slowly
descended the bank of the stream, which now trickled thinly over its
chalky bed, forming little transparent pools, and nourishing shiny
clumps of coarse watercress. It was past the hour for milking, and the
cows lowed protestingly as they splashed across the stream. Phœbe had
always been most prompt about the milking. Now Vale let down the bars
and opened the door of the byre. He could not understand Snailem’s
lateness. He made up his mind that if Snailem came home the worse for
liquor he would be very sharp with him. Probably threaten to dismiss
him.
He had adjusted the chains, and watered the cows, when he heard a horse
tramping into the stable. A moment later a man entered the byre, a
pitchfork in his hand. It was old Peek.
“Where is Snailem?” asked Derek, suspiciously.
Peek came close to him, and said with a wavering grin: “He’s gone. Gone
for good, with them others. He said he couldn’t stand the thought of
Grimstone without Phœbe, and he didn’t fancy a winter in the country
anyways. I happened to be at the station when he was getting his ticket
and he asked me to please drive Mike home, and to tell you he’ll return
the eight dollars he got off you, as soon as he gets a job.”
“The robber!” said Derek, bitterly. “He got me to advance the money so
he could buy himself a pair of boots in Mistwell. I ought by rights to
get the police after him. . . . But I’m glad he’s gone. He was a poor
tool. I believe I’m well rid of him.”
“And the things he used to say about you and your missus at the barber’s
shop was scandalous. I used to say to him, ‘Snailem, it’s a dirty bird
that fouls its own nest.’ God’s my witness, Mr. Vale, I said that to him
time and again, and he’d say——”
“I don’t want to hear what he said. Can you do this milking for me while
I bed down the stock?”
Then and there he employed Peek and his half-grown grandson to work
steadily by the week, and sleep at home.
Now he felt honestly glad to be rid of Snailem. The thought of his
untidy face with its eternal ooze of tobacco juice was repugnant. Peek
was a decent old chap, his grandson willing and strong. The fall work
was in excellent shape. He should get on very well with outside help
till spring, and, by George, he would make Fawnie do her part!
While Peek milked he strode to the house to look for her. He had
unlocked the door into the hall long ago.
“Fawnie!” he called loudly from the dining-room. “Come here!”
He heard her descending the stairs, and in a moment her face, bright and
calm as an unruffled bird’s, appeared in the doorway.
“Look here,” he said, “you’ve got to come and feed the poultry, and put
the turkeys out of the poultry-house. You’ve driven all the servants
from the farm, so you must turn in and help yourself.”
“How jolly!” she said. “I come this instant moment. I’ll kill those
turkeys surely.”
“Don’t feed the hens too much,” he admonished, as they walked back to
the barn. “The last time you fed them, they were all but crop-bound with
corn.”
“I will make them drunk on silage,” she said, gaily, “and I will teach
them to sing a song of joy because Phœbe is gone. Oh, she is a bad one,
that Phœbe. I peeped in her box as it stood on the back porch, and, what
do you s’pose? She had taken two of the blue and gold cups and
saucers—one apiece for them.”
“I hope you took them out.”
“I did, Derek. And I put in their place a sticky tin pie-plate that she
wouldn’t scrape clean yesterday.”
“Fawnie,” said Derek, taking her hand. “I say it in all solemnity, you
are more than a match for anyone I know.”
The stock had been fed and bedded for the night; the poultry safely
housed; the milk separated and set away to cool; old Peek was gone; and
Derek stood leaning against a pillar of the porch, while his wife
prepared the tea. He gazed at the quiet lake, at the pale star of the
lighthouse just winking out against the sombre red of the sky. He saw
little gnarled trees on the bluff twisted into fantastic postures—the
sport of Grimstone. And here was he who had come to Grimstone with a
grand gesture of possession—its sport, too—bent to its will—his
Indian wife cooking in the kitchen—his Indian son kicking on the
bed. . . . His son was beginning to cry, as well as kick. “Coming,
Buckskin!” he shouted, and went to him.
4.
Fawnie was surprisingly competent in the affairs of the house. The
living-rooms looked no untidier than when under Phœbe’s care. Buckskin’s
face was often clean. She cooked for Derek simple, yet quite eatable
meals, and together they made a steamed pudding from a recipe in the
Brancepeth _Era_, that turned out so well that they made themselves sick
eating it. Mrs. Orde came from Mistwell twice a week to wash and scrub.
As the winter drew in and there was less to do, Derek left the work to
the Peeks and lay in bed in the mornings till he felt like rising.
Fawnie had learned to cook his bacon without burning it, and he would
sit comfortably at his breakfast, the morning paper which Peek had
brought propped up before him. But he read it with little interest. He
was degenerating into a healthy animal with no horizon beyond the
borders of its pasture. Now that Reciprocity had been defeated, he gave
no further thought to the affairs of the country nor was interested to
know what the new government was doing. He heard, unmoved, stories of
Chard’s success and of Hobbs’s aggressive administering of the Durras
estate. He had dismissed half of the labourers and was getting an equal
amount of work from the remaining half, so Peek said, and so Hobbs
himself confirmed when he came to call one wild November night, and sat
by the open fire with them while the waves thundered on the shore and
the gale drove the flames down the chimney.
Derek sat in the middle in the full firelight, the flames brightening to
clear ruddiness his full fair face; Hobbs, on the right, his features
sharpened by the darting shadows, his muddy legginged legs stretched on
the hearth, his light eyes feasting on the beauty of Fawnie’s face, as
she sat opposite. Her eyes, glowing beneath the folds of dark hair,
carefully encircled about her brow, were bent on the two blond men with
a look of pensive, yet triumphant, experience. Hobbs’s attitude towards
her was deferential. He seemed to have forgotten the time when he had
haled her before Mr. Jerrold for trapping one of his hares. Derek liked
him for this, and when he went to the door with him, invited him to come
again.
Moved by the friendliness of the moment, Hobbs told Derek that he had
just become engaged to Miss Pearsall.
Derek was astonished beyond measure at the news. But he kept a sober
face, and congratulated Hobbs earnestly. Yet when he awakened in the
night and thought of the union of that posturing, affected girl, and
that hard-bitten, fierce man, he shook the bed with cynical laughter.
Late in November came the first snowfall, a deep, yet exquisitely,
fragile snowfall, that made a new enchanted world. The bare orchards
were weighed with glittering fruit, the windows of the house peered
forth like astonished eyes beneath lowering white brows. Peek’s deep
footprints from the barn were little blue caverns. Yet the sun was warm,
and the sky a turquoise blue. The snow certainly could not last.
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do, Fawnie,” said Derek. “We’ll get out the
little red sleigh; and I’ll wrap you and Buckskin in the buffalo robe,
and we’ll drive to Brancepeth. I need some new shirts and a pair of
boots. Do you know, I haven’t bought myself a blessed thing since I left
Halifax!”
“Darling,” replied Fawnie. “I’m surprised at you. As long as you have
things for your own back you never notice that baby and I are naked. As
a matter of fac’, I’m nakeder than I was when I bought those last
clothes, for they are wore out and my old ones, too. Winter is here and
baby and I are naked. I s’pose I mus’ go out to work like Mrs. Orde and
make money to buy clothes.”
“You do look shabby, and the kid, too,” he returned, ignoring her
threat. “Well, wrap yourselves up warmly, and we’ll buy clothes for
everybody.”
The gelding was wild to go. He sent little clots of snow on to the
buffalo robe, and even against their faces. The air was like wine, the
lake lay tranquil and bright below, its smooth surface only disturbed by
the wet, black heads of a flock of wild ducks swimming sharply near the
shore. Durras flew past; then the Jerrolds’ cottage. Derek gave one
swift look at the little stable. Even the weather-vane on its gable was
draped in white. Buckskin crowed and kicked with joy at the merry jingle
of the sleighbells.
Brancepeth was a newborn village, white and pure, and only half awake.
People in the street stopped to stare at the dashing red sleigh, and at
dark little Mrs. Vale showing her white teeth in an assured smile.
Derek let her go into the milliner’s shop alone. He sat outside holding
the restive horse, and looking down with amusement at the round-faced
infant beside him who stared from under his woollen cap with
greenish-blue eyes so like his own. Plainly he was fascinated by the
aspect of the butcher’s shop, next door to the milliner’s. For a
beautiful roe hung there by her heels, her disembowelled body stiff and
taut, her pink tongue between her teeth, touching the pavement. And, as
though that were not enough, there hung at the other side of his door a
burly black bear, his great paws with their curving claws pressed
together as if in prayer.
“Deer!” said Derek, pointing with his whip. “Bear! Gun shot them.”
Buckskin twitched from head to foot with excitement. He made
inarticulate sounds of joy.
Fawnie came to the door of the millinery shop with a blue hat on her
head. Did darling like it? Darling thought it was horrible and said so.
It made her sallow. Then she came wearing a red one with black wings.
Not so bad; but it was a little brown one he chose with a fur band; just
like a little French hat, the milliner followed Fawnie to the door to
say. It certainly became her, and she wore it when she left, carrying
her old one in a paper bag.
At the dry goods store she bought a brown coat with a fur collar, a
plaid skirt, two blouses (she did not trouble much about underwear), and
a pair of brown boots. There were things bought for Buckskin that only a
woman knew how to buy, but Derek strode in himself, with the child on
his arm, and bought him a little rabbit-skin coat and a cap with
earlugs.
Their presence created an agreeable excitement in the shops, for
everyone knew their story, and customers and clerks alike craned their
necks to catch a glimpse of that handsome young Mr. Vale and his Indian
wife.
In the chemist’s window a pyramid of pink soap caught Fawnie’s eye. She
must have some, and a new sponge for the baby. Derek waited outside
while she made her purchases. . . .
They were opposite the “Duke of York” as the town bell struck the hour
of noon. Of his own accord the horse turned in towards the stables.
Fawnie said she was starving, and Derek realized that he himself was
very hungry. He looked her over critically. In her dark ulster and
little fur-trimmed toque she looked well dressed, and incredibly lovely.
Her cheeks were flushed with health and pleasure, her eyes had the
brilliance of some furry forest animal’s peering from under a bush. Her
mouth and chin made him smile, they were so disdainful.
“How should you like,” he asked, “to go in and have some dinner?”
“It would be jolly.” But she showed no surprise.
“What about the kid?”
“You get me a room, darling, and I’ll nurse him and lay him on the bed
while we eat our dinner.”
They left the horse with an ostler, and went into the low hall of the
tavern. Fawnie, carrying Buckskin, mounted the stair, a servant with a
dangling key following her, and Derek turned into the bar. It was well
filled—a large, comfortable bar, clean, smelling of ale and freshly
burning hemlock. A porter was on his knees before the stove. As Vale
drank his ale he watched the languid movements of the fellow. The
porter, seeming to feel his gaze, looked up, and Derek saw it was Bob
Gunn.
Bob’s beady black eyes twinkled, whether with a friendly or malicious
light Derek could not tell.
“Well, how do you like your new job?”
“Fine. The pay’s fair, the food’s guid, and the commaircial men are free
eneuch wi’ their tips. It’s better than fairm life anyway.”
“But the hours are even longer.”
“Ay, but there’s something doing. Something to see. I’d liefer hear a
stoker off one of the lake vessels curse than listen tae Chaird’s
whingin’ and whinin’. I’d liefer clean up the floor of the bar than dig
in the freezing airth all day makin’ drains, or hoe out weeds that are
up again before your back’s turned. Then you hear interestin’ talk here,
politeeks, religion, science, and the status of women in the wairld.
There’s nae sich thing as a dull hour.” He was sitting on his heels, a
stick of hemlock in his hand. He now looked up in Derek’s face with his
twinkling eyes. “By the way, we had a relation of yours in here lately.”
“A relation of mine?” repeated Derek, mystified.
“Ay, Jammery. He was wanting a drink, but, of course, we had tae order
him out as he is on the Indian List. He objected, and contended that he
was white. He looks pretty white, and speaks well, but he’s connected
with them, so the bartender wouldn’t take any risks. They’ll be refusing
you a drink next thing, I’m thinking, Mr. Vale.” His twinkle was
altogether malicious now.
Suppressing a desire to kick him more thoroughly than he had done
before, Vale paid for his ale and went out to find Fawnie. She was
standing, a motionless little figure, just outside the dining-room door.
The waitress, a plump young girl with an excellently white neck, led
them to a table, and leaned over Derek to take the order. Fawnie
solemnly unfolded her bluish-white damp table-napkin, folded in the
shape of a bishop’s mitre. Derek ordered soup, roast pork, and
apple-sauce. “Remember,” he whispered, when the girl had gone, “to keep
that knife away from your mouth, and just break small bits off your
bread.”
Fawnie nodded obediently. She behaved like a good child. They had but
well begun when a robust voice greeted Derek, and looking up, he beheld
Mr. Ramsey.
“Well met,” he said, cheerily. “This is an unexpected treat. May I sit
down and have my dinner with you? You know I take most of my meals here,
and I find it very pleasant.”
He shook hands with them and sat down. “Yes, Katy, some roast pork. And
a bit of the nice juicy rind. And don’t be sparing with the apple-sauce.
I find I cannot flourish without plenty of apple-sauce.”
While the Vicar ate with gusto he talked buoyantly of things in general.
He was glad they had won the election. The fruit market was safe, thank
goodness. . . . His pullets were beginning to lay. But he had lost a
fine cockerel last week from limber-neck. Strange disease. Head flopping
all over the place. . . . Did Derek see much of the Jerrolds? Mr.
Jerrold had certainly been hard hit by the sale. But he was plucky. They
had happy times in the cottage every Sunday afternoon. He always took
tea with them on Sunday. . . . And Hobbs! One could scarcely imagine
Miss Pearsall caring for him. She was so extremely refined. But Love
laughed at Manners. Really, he was an unmannerly little rascal
himself. . . . Hobbs had been to church twice lately. After all, Miss
Pearsall would make a charming mistress for Durras.
Derek saw that Mr. Ramsey was giving sharp glances at Fawnie’s face. He
turned and looked at her himself, and almost dropped his fork in horror
at what he saw. Evidently when she had been at the chemist’s she had
bought some atrocious face powder and in the seclusion of the bedroom
had wantonly smeared her cheeks with it. It must have been intended for
a strawberry blonde, for it was a light pink with a strong hint of mauve
that stood out on her dusky face with terrible effrontery.
Derek, flushing red himself, whispered to her fiercely: “Go upstairs and
rub that powder off your face. Get it every bit off, and fetch the baby.
We’re going.”
“But I haven’t finished my pudding.”
“Do as I tell you.”
Fawnie rose, and with bent head glided from the room. The Vicar moved
near to Vale. “Poor child,” he said, “they have given her the wrong
tint. . . . Now there is a powder,” lowering his voice confidently,
“I’ve read about it in the advertisements—for really dark skin. It’s
called Rachel, I believe. If she got that, I believe it would answer
nicely.”
“Rachel,” repeated Vale, comforted by the Vicar’s sympathetic attitude.
“Yes, Rachel. Probably pronounced in the French way—Rachelle. . . . I
think your wife is charming to look at; and full of intelligence, one
can see. I’m sure you have never regretted that I advised you in this
matter.”
“Everything’s all right,” replied Vale, uncomfortable again.
They waited at the bottom of the stairs for Fawnie, who came down
carrying the baby.
The powder had been washed off, and she was radiant with pride in the
child in his snowy new rabbit-skin coat and cap. The Vicar stared at him
in astonished admiration. And, indeed, he had the composed air of a
princeling. His golden-brown skin, his long greenish eyes, the bright
curl on his forehead were charming.
“You must bring him to me and have him christened,” said Mr. Ramsey.
“All right,” said Derek. “His name is Buckskin.”