BY WATER
Miss Parrett felt slightly embarrassed and uncomfortable when people
remarked how seldom her motor was seen! “Was it not satisfactory?” they
inquired. The old lady also recognised that her chauffeur was doing the
work of a really capital gardener, and was Susan’s right hand; this
annoyed her excessively. She disliked the idea that her employé was
slaving to please her sister; and accordingly changed her tactics, gave
instructions for the car to go out twice a week with Miss Susan and
Miss Morven, or Miss Susan and Mrs. Ramsay.
Susan and her niece had promptly availed themselves of this permission,
and seized the opportunity of penetrating into far-away villages and to
distant country seats; and the poor old motor, at their request, was
racketted along at its best speed, as they were bound to be in Ottinge
before dark, in order that the car might be washed. If they, by any
chance, were a little late, they were received at the hall door by Miss
Parrett, in cold silence, watch in hand.
After the recent heavy rains, the low, marshy country was flooded, and,
returning one afternoon from a twenty-mile expedition, at a sharp turn
in the road where the ground sloped steeply, the motor ran into a wide
sheet of water--a neighbouring river had burst its banks. There was no
going back, that was impossible. Miss Susan for once lost her nerve,
and, putting her head out, asked the chauffeur piteously--
“What shall we do?”
“There’s only one thing for it, miss,” he answered promptly. “I don’t
think the water is deep, and I’ll keep straight on--as near as I can
guess--in the middle of the road; you see, there are ditches at either
side, and I can’t turn; but you need not be nervous--as long as the
water doesn’t reach the magneto you are all right.”
But, as they crept forward cautiously, the water was gradually rising;
it rose and rose, till it stole in under the door, and then the motor
came to a full stop.
“_Now_, what’s going to happen?” demanded Miss Susan excitedly.
“I see the road is not more than fifty yards ahead, and the water is
shallower. We have stuck in the worst part.”
“But what is to become of us, my good man? Are _we_ to sit here all
night--and the motor may blow up?”
“I’ll go to a farmhouse and borrow a couple of horses, and I dare say
after a bit I can start her again.”
“And are we to remain here, Owen, and be half-drowned? You know my
sister will be _crazy_ if we are not home by seven.”
“There’s one thing I could do, Miss Susan,” he replied, “that is if you
have no objection; I can carry you and Miss Morven through the water,
and put you out on the road high and dry. I think I might get a trap in
Swingford village; you could drive home, and I’ll bring the car along
to-morrow. It seems the only thing to be done.”
After this suggestion there ensued a long and animated consultation
between aunt and niece; at last Miss Susan, raising her voice, said--
“Very well, Owen, I see no alternative; you can take me first--I am a
light weight.”
Owen now descended from his place and waded to the door, which he
opened.
“All right, Miss Susan, you may depend on me. I won’t drop you.”
“How am I to manage?” she asked shame-facedly.
“It’s quite easy! Just put your arms round my neck, miss, and hold
tight.”
After a moment’s coy reluctance--it was the first time in her life she
had ever put her arms round a man’s neck--Miss Susan timidly embraced
him.
“Hold on,” he commanded, and, lifting her bodily out of the car as
if she were a child, waded away, striding and splashing up to his
middle in water. When he had carefully deposited her on dry land, the
chauffeur returned for the young lady, who, it must be confessed,
awaited him with a wildly beating heart; it seemed to her that in his
air there was actually a look of mastery and triumph. If he had been an
ordinary chauffeur, such as the Woolcocks’, she would not have minded;
but this man--this Lieutenant Wynyard, who was of her own class--oh,
how she shrank from this enforced ordeal; she felt deeply reluctant and
ashamed.
However, she asked no questions, made no hysterical protests, but rose
as he appeared, put her arms on his shoulders--though she would rather
have waded up to her neck--and was borne into the stream, upon which
a laggard moon had recently arisen. Little, little did Aurea guess
that, as she leant her head upon his leather shoulder, how Owen, the
chauffeur, had to fight with a frantic, almost overmastering, desire to
kiss her! And what an outcry there would have been, not merely from
the young lady herself, but the sole witness, her maiden aunt!
Fortunately, with a superhuman effort, he pulled himself together,
steadied his racing pulses, and thrust the dreadful idea behind him, as
he struggled to the end of his task, and presently placed Miss Morven
high and dry on the road beside her relative. Then, leaving the rescued
ladies to one another’s company, he set off to a village two miles
distant to hunt up some conveyance.
As Wynyard tramped along in his wet clothes, he had it out with his
ego. For all his youth and hot blood, he had always a cool power
of judgment--as far as his own acts were concerned--and he was now
prepared to discuss the present situation with himself. Since he
had held Miss Aurea’s light form in his arms, felt her sweet breath
on his cheek, he knew there was no use in playing the ostrich, and
that he was hopelessly in love--had been in love since the very
first time he had set eyes upon her! Looking back at the matter,
calmly and dispassionately, he realised that it was not on account of
Leila’s disappointment that he stayed on, and did not throw up his
situation--as Miss Parrett’s exasperating behaviour so often tempted
him to do. He remained at Ottinge solely to be near Aurea; it was for
Aurea that he kept his temper, slaved in the garden, and sang in the
choir; yet he could not say a word to Aurea, or endeavour to ingratiate
himself like other more fortunate young men; he had his bond to
remember, and his hands were tied--yes, and his tongue too. Was ever
any fellow in such a fix? And such was the contrariness of life, he had
gone about the world when he was free, and had never once met a girl he
thought of twice--and here he was always thinking of Aurea, yet dared
not disclose his feelings; meanwhile, some luckier fellow would come
along and make up to her and marry her! And at the thought he stopped
and ground his heel into the earth with savage force.
There was Bertie Woolcock, rolling in money, heir to that fine place;
and he would have one year and ten months’ start, whilst _he_ was left
at the post! Oh, it was enough to drive him mad to think of! Well,
Bertie had never held her in his arms, at any rate,--he had; how she
had trembled, poor darling! Yes, he was that to the good.
“Mean beast!” apostrophising himself; “when you know that the girl
could not help herself, and would have given everything she possessed
to get out of such a dilemma!” What would Leila say? Should he tell
her? No; she would only laugh (he could hear her laugh) and ask, “What
are you going to marry on, even if Uncle Dick lets you off?”
He had two pounds two shillings a week, and if he made love to her
niece, Miss Parrett would naturally and properly send him about his
business. Oh, it was all an infernal muddle--there was no way out of
it--nothing to do but hide his feelings and bide his time; the wild,
haunting refrain of an old negro camp hymn came into his head, “And
hold the Lion down! and hold the Lion down!” Well, he was holding the
lion down, and a thundering hard job he found it!
He had no reason to suspect that Aurea ever thought of him--why should
she? She was always polite, gracious--no more. His only little scrap of
comfort lay in the fact that he believed Miss Susan liked him--liked
him really, in a nice, sentimental, proper, old-maid fashion! She
was romantic, so said her niece, who bantered her on her passion for
promoting love-affairs and love-matches--he had heard her taunt her
playfully with the fact. Undoubtedly Miss Susan was his good friend,
and that was the sole morsel of comfort he could offer himself!
Presently Wynyard reached a sleepy little village, unearthed a
carrier’s cart, horse, and man, and returned to the place where the two
ladies were awaiting him with the liveliest impatience.
That evening, at nine o’clock, Miss Susan, who had deposited her niece
at the Rectory, arrived at home in a carrier’s cart--the sole available
mode of conveyance. Her sister, who had been roaming about the hall and
passages, accompanied by Mrs. Ramsay, wringing her hands and whimpering
that “Susan had been killed,” was considerably relieved. But, as soon
as her fears were subdued, she became frightfully excited respecting
the fate of her beautiful motor, which, by all accounts, had been left
standing in the middle of a river--five miles from home.
“Oh, I assure you it will be all right, Bella; please don’t worry
yourself. Owen will manage.”
“Owen, indeed!” she echoed angrily; “it’s my opinion that he manages
_you_--you think a great deal too much of that young man; there’s
something at the back of him--it would never surprise me if some day he
went off with that motor, and we never saw him again.”
“My dear sister! You know you are overwrought, or you would never talk
such rubbish.”
“If the motor was stuck in the middle of a river, I should like to
know how you and Aurea got out of it without being half-drowned?” she
demanded judicially.
“Oh, we got out of it very simply, and it was as easy as kiss my hand,”
rejoined Miss Susan, with a gay laugh. “The only person that got wet
was Owen; he carried us.”
“_What!_” cried Mrs. Ramsay, with dancing eyes; “carried you and
Aurea--how?”
“Why, in his arms--where else? First he took me, then he took her; and
we were no more trouble to him than if we had been a couple of babies.”
“Well, upon my word,” snorted Miss Parrett, casting up her hands,
“I think the whole thing is scandalous! You and Aurea flying about
the country, and spending most of your time in the motor, going here
and going there, coming home at night alone in a carrier’s cart, and
telling me you left the motor in the middle of a river, and that you
were carried out of it in the arms of the chauffeur! and that without a
blush on your faces! Upon my word, Susan Parrett, I don’t know what’s
coming to you! Either you are going mad, or you are falling into your
second childhood.”
Miss Parrett was profoundly relieved to see her valuable car arrive
on its own horse-power the following afternoon. It certainly looked
rather limp and sorry for itself, and did not recover from its
adventures in the river for some time. Water had a fatal effect upon
its organisation; indeed, its condition became so serious that it had
to be sent to a garage, there to be overhauled--and a bill, which was
the result, proved one of Miss Parrett’s favourite grievances for the
ensuing six months.