INNUENDOS
MISS COXEN came to a pause, and Jessie felt the prospect
unsatisfactory. Her visions of great success and crowded time for
Mildred had waxed dim.
She was, however, wise enough to be thankful for small things, and her
neatly expressed thanks went far towards disarming the sisters of their
spirit of opposition to the scheme. Again they promised to "think it
over," each enforcing the other's words with repetitions, and Jessie
had to say, "Thank you so much," at least six times in acknowledgment.
After all this, the temptation to recur to Jack Groates became
irresistible. Miss Coxen looked across the road, opening and shutting
her eyes with meaning, and Miss Sophy gave vent to little sympathetic
gasps.
"And how is that poor young fellow getting on?" asked Miss Coxen in
benignant tones.
Jessie's mother-wit came quickly to her aid.
"What poor fellow?" she inquired, with lifted eyebrows, and with
scarcely so much as a blush. Necessity lent her self-control.
"What poor fellow? O now, Jessie, Jessie, as if you didn't know! The
idea of pretending!" ejaculated Miss Sophy, shaking a pair of scissors
at her. "And such friends as you and he are too!"
"He hasn't been here long enough," Jessie replied, with a coolness
which astonished herself, though, indeed, her cheeks were no longer
cool. "I like him, of course, but not so much as the old Vicar yet."
"Dear me! She means the Vicar, sister," in an audible aside.
"But we mean poor young Jack Groates, Jessie. How is he getting on?"
asked the older sister with an indulgent smile.
"O well enough, I dare say," responded Jessie indifferently. "I'm too
busy to go and ask; but they say he'll be walking soon."
"Brave young fellow."
"Was he? Other people were brave too. Aunt Barbara said he had no
business to go at all."
"My dear Jessie!" ejaculated one sister.
And "Jessie, my dear!" echoed the other.
"That was what aunt Barbara said. I didn't say it. She said it wasn't
Jack's business. Of course I don't know. They might all have been
drowned, of course."
"Ah, it is easy to speak so now, Jessie, when the young fellow is all
right in his own room. If he had been drowned, I know very well who
would have broken her poor little heart."
"You don't know!" retorted Jessie indignantly, unable any longer to
keep up a show of indifference. "I can guess what you mean, I suppose,
and it is all nonsense. Of course I was sorry; anybody would be sorry
to know of people being drowned—people they knew! But I think it is
very unkind to make so much out of nothing, and to twit people with it
afterwards. I'm very fond of Mrs. Groates, and it seemed so dreadful to
think of what she would have to bear. And then to be accused—" Jessie
broke down, nearly in tears.
"Yes, yes, my dear; of course that is all clear and right," pursued
Miss Sophy, not in the least convinced, and smiling away in a manner
which exasperated Jessie. "Of course it's quite proper and sensible to
talk like that, and every one knows what it is worth. We'll all wait
and see. And some day, when Jack Groates speaks out,—"
"Speaks out what?" cried Jessie angrily.
"Really, Jessie, I wouldn't give way to temper; I wouldn't really,"
expostulated Miss Coxen. "It is such a pity. You ought to be able
to take kindly a little interest in your affairs from such old
friends—such very old friends as we are. We are only pleased for your
sake, because we know you so well, and because we are fond of you."
"Pleased about what?" asked Jessie tartly.
Miss Coxen hesitated; Miss Sophy did not hesitate. "About you and Jack
Groates," she said, beaming.
"What about me and Jack Groates?"
Jessie was too wrathful now to remember her manners.
"My dear, of course you know what I mean."
"I don't; or if I do, nobody has any business to say such things.
That's nobody's business except my own," declared Jessie. "Jack has
never asked me to marry him; and if he did—"
Jessie came to a pause. Indignation had carried her on farther than she
had meant to go. She found suddenly whither her words were tending.
"And if he did?" echoed Miss Sophy.
"I wouldn't have him, of course."
"Now, Jessie!"
"Why should I? You don't suppose I'm going to have the first man that
wants me, if I don't care for him! Not I!" cried Jessie.
"You wouldn't marry that fine young fellow if he wanted to have you,
Jessie?"
Jessie flung her head back, and stood up.
"Marry Jack Groates! Thank you! Not I!"
The sisters stared each at the other, aghast. "Aunt Barbara will want
me. I've got to go home now."
Good-byes were brief, and Jessie was speedily hastening homeward. But
she did not at once report herself to Miss Perkins, or go to Mildred.
She ran upstairs to her own little room, shut the door, and stood still
to think.
"How they do meddle, and how I do hate meddling! Was I wrong to say
that? But what else could I say? And now they will go and repeat what I
have said all over the place. And Jack will hear it too. Well, let him!
If he really cares for me, he ought to understand; and if he doesn't,
it's the best thing he can hear. Will he mind? Poor Jack! O I wish, I
wish, people wouldn't interfere in what doesn't concern them. What does
it signify to Miss Sophy whether I like Jack or don't like him? It's
our business, not hers.
"Aunt Barbara declared it was no business of Jack's to go and save
the sailors, and I think that was his business. It was everybody's
business. But I'm sure this isn't everybody's business. I do detest the
way Miss Sophy goes on. And if Jack hears what I said! I wish I hadn't
said so much! And yet if I hadn't, Miss Sophy would have gone talking
everywhere, as if I wanted to marry Jack. And I don't—unless he wants
it! Of course I don't. But if Jack hears, what will he think?"
Jessie's fears were not without foundation. So interesting a
conversation could not possibly be kept by the sisters for their own
private delectation, and it was whispered in detail to one acquaintance
after another, always under injunctions to secrecy.
Such injunctions are not worth much, since each acquaintance was
pretty sure to repeat the whisper to somebody else. In this manner the
tale travelled in a very short time, not exactly across the road, but
round by longer routes, till it arrived inside Groates' store. Had
Jack's mother heard it, she would never have said a word to Jack; but
unhappily Mimy was the recipient, and Mimy always told everything to
Jack. She never thought of making this an exception. Jack listened with
grieved eyes.
"Jessie said she wouldn't have me! Mimy, are you sure it isn't a
mistake? What could have made her speak so? I've never told her yet in
plain words that I do want her; but she must have seen. I thought she
understood, and I thought she cared for me. I did really think it."
"I'm sure I did too, Jack. Jessie must be a heartless sort of girl to
talk in such a way—just now when you are ill, too."
"We don't know what made her talk so. You're quite sure she really did
say it?"
"Miss Sophy is telling everybody that she did. I don't see why Miss
Sophy should make up such a story for nothing. And Jessie hasn't been
here nearly so often the last few weeks, Jack. Mother and I could not
think why. Perhaps she has changed somehow."
"I couldn't have thought it of her," muttered Jack. He hid his face,
and actually groaned aloud. "I thought there wasn't another girl in the
world like Jessie." Then he looked up at his sister.
"Mimy, don't tell mother. I can't talk about it yet, and she would be
so sorry. Just leave it for me to tell her. I'll do it some day; not
yet. But I did think Jessie was different. I did think she cared for me
a little."