The next morning Mildred awoke to find the sun pouring into her room
through the uncurtained windows. A moment of sleepy confusion, and then
remembrance awoke. It was the day of the picnic--the all-important day
which had been dreamt of so long, and with such ardent anticipation.
She jumped out of bed and ran to the window, to see if the sky fulfilled
the promise of the sunshine. Well, not quite! the blue was broken by
ominous clouds, which the wind drove along at a speed too rapid to be
reassuring. Mildred knew that radiant mornings had an unpleasant knack
of settling down into gloomy days, but she was so anxious to think the
best that she would not allow herself to dwell upon unpleasant truths.
It was enough to put anyone in good spirits to dress in that delicious
blaze of sunshine, and the meeting at the breakfast-table took place
under the brightest auspices.
"Isn't it a perfectly scrumptious day? Doesn't it make you want to skip
and dance?" cried Mildred enthusiastically. "I feel as if I could do
anything when the sun shines like this--it's so inspiring--it makes you
feel so strong, and light, and well. I could jump over a mountain, I
believe, if there was one in my way." She gave a spring over a stool as
she spoke, by way of illustrating her words, and might possibly have
proceeded to further exploits had not Lady Sarah entered the room at
that moment and taken her seat at the head of the table.
She walked with an unusually brisk tread, and her face looked less lined
and tired than usual. The brilliant morning had evidently its effect
upon her as well as on the younger members of the household, and so
amiable did she appear that the girls went on with their rhapsodies
undeterred by her presence. They laughed, and chattered, and joked in
overflowing spirits, and when Lady Sarah found a chance to put in a
question about the scene of the day's excursion there was a race to see
who could answer first, and use the greatest number of superlatives in
doing so.
"A pretty place?--Oh, exquisite! The most beautiful little village that
was ever seen! A river?--Yes, indeed, the prettiest river in the world,
splashing over rocks, and with the sweetest little shady paths on either
side! An inn?--Rather! Like an inn in a picture--oak walls, and blue
china in corner cupboards. Walks?--Everywhere! In every direction?--
Impossible to take a wrong turning where every step of the country was
beautiful!"
After these rhapsodies had continued for several moments Lady Sarah's
face began to assume an expression of curiosity, and she glanced out of
the window from time to time, as if mentally considering some question.
"I am not quite sure about the day, the clouds look low. If it were
more settled I really think I should like to come with you myself
instead of Miss Turner."
Had a bomb-shell suddenly exploded in the room its occupants could
hardly have been more bewildered than they were by the utterance of
these few, quietly-spoken words, "I should like to go with you myself."
The girls held their breath, and felt stupefied with horror. They had
never dreamt that this would be the result of their ecstatic
description; they had imagined that the subject of a chaperone was
settled once for all, and it was a terrible awakening. Bertha was the
first to recover her composure. She had a strong consciousness of the
importance of her position as the Dean's eldest daughter, and in her
mother's absence was determined not to shirk her responsibility.
"But--but, Lady Sarah, Miss Turner has been asked. Mother has written
to Mrs Newland. Do you think it would do to alter the arrangement?"
she asked earnestly, and Lady Sarah tossed her head in derision.
"My dear child, what nonsense you talk! I think Mrs Newland would have
little hesitation in accepting me in Miss Turner's place; I would
explain it to her myself."
"But we go for a walk in the afternoon, a long walk. You would be
terribly tired."
"Nothing of the sort. I am not quite paralysed yet. Say no more on
that score, if you please. I am able and willing, and shall be glad of
the chance of seeing the place; but, of course if you prefer the
governess--"
What could be said in answer to such a question as this? The usages of
polite society forbidding a candid avowal of the truth, Bertha could
only protest feebly in a weak, broken-spirited voice.
"Very well, then, we will consider it settled. We do not leave the
house until half-past eleven, by that time I shall see what the day is
going to do. It is beginning to cloud over, and I don't like the look
of the sky. If it shows any disposition to rain I shall certainly not
risk an attack of rheumatism by walking on damp grass, but if it keeps
fine I shall be ready when the carriage comes round. Miss Turner will
no doubt be very glad to stay at home."
She swept from the room, and the scene which followed can be better
imagined than described. Mildred paced up and down, her cheeks aflame,
her lips pressed together to keep back a torrent of angry words. Lois
had hard work not to cry outright, while Bertha sat down on a chair, and
clasped her hands in despair.
"I know what it means!--I know what it means! She went with us once
before. She made me stay beside her all day long, and wear mufflers
round my neck; and sit inside the coach coming home. She wouldn't let
me have an ice at lunch, or sail on the lake--or--or--do anything nice!
I'd just as soon give it up at once, and stay at home. It will be all
spoiled! I sha'n't enjoy it a bit!"
She was very near tears herself, but for once in her life Mildred made
no response. There was a strange, half-triumphant smile upon her lips,
and she continued to pace up and down the room, and to take no part in
her friend's lamentations.
By and by Bertha and Lois went away, with dejected mien, to attend to
the various duties with which they had been charged. Bertha to the
nursery, to give orders that some little friends should be invited to
take tea with the children, Lois to arrange the basket of flowers which
the gardener brought up to the house. About ten o'clock the sky clouded
over in a threatening manner, and it seemed as if Lady Sarah's prophecy
was about to be fulfilled, but when the carriage came round to the door
at half-past eleven, the sun was shining again in all its splendour, and
the air felt warm and fragrant.
Neither of the girls had seen anything of Mildred since parting from her
in the breakfast-room, but at the last moment she came strolling
leisurely across the hall, looking such a picture of youth and beauty as
made them hold their breath in admiration. The blue dress looked as
fresh and dainty as if it was being worn for the first time, a soft
white sash was twisted round the waist, and a bunch of ox-eye daisies
tucked into the folds of muslin round the neck. The golden hair fell in
wavy masses down her back, and the shady hat dipped forward over her
charming face. The Dean's daughters looked colourless and insignificant
beside her, but they were too radiantly happy to care about their own
appearance, for it was Miss Turner who came forward to seat herself
beside them in the carriage, while Lady Sarah stood within the porch
speaking her farewells in tones of ill-concealed irritation.
"Most rash and foolish I call it! I heard the rain distinctly, I tell
you, and not satisfied with hearing, I put my head out of the window and
felt several drops upon my face. Have you taken umbrellas and
mackintoshes?--No? Now, my dear Lois, pray, don't make objections to
everything I say. Your mother is away, and I feel the responsibility on
my shoulders. Miss Turner, will you be good enough to see that
umbrellas and mackintoshes are taken, and good thick cloaks in case of
cold? You will be starved to death on the coach coming home."
The echo of the fretful voice followed the carriage as it drove away
from the door, and as Bertha waved her hand, a shadow of compunction
fell over her face.
"She is disappointed! Poor old lady; she looks lonely, standing there.
She daren't come because of her rheumatism; but just look at that sky,
and imagine anyone saying that it had been raining; so positive about
it, too. She must have been dreaming."
"Well, for goodness sake don't begin to be miserable now, Bertha,
because she is _not_ coming! Two hours ago you were nearly crying
because she was. You said you wouldn't enjoy yourself at all, and would
just as soon stay at home. For goodness sake be cheerful, and don't
grumble any more!"
Mildred's voice sounded so irritable that her friends stared at her in
surprise. She looked exceedingly pretty and charming, but not quite
like herself all the same. It was difficult to say wherein the
difference lay, yet both Lois and Bertha recognised it at once. The air
of exuberant happiness, which was one of her chief characteristics, had
disappeared. She looked strained, worried, ill at ease.
All through the earlier part of the day this curious depression seemed
to hang over Mildred's spirits. At every quiet opportunity she
whispered an eager "Are you enjoying yourself?" into her friend's ear;
"You are enjoying yourself, aren't you, Bertha?" but it was not until
lunch was laid out upon the grass, and the merry scramble for knives and
forks had begun, that she herself seemed able to enter into the fun with
a whole heart. From that time onward she was her own merry self, and
Bertha had the pleasure of seeing her prophecy fulfilled, for before the
afternoon was over, Mildred, in her old blue dress and renovated hat,
had become the principal personage in the party. The ladies were
charmed with her because she was so pretty, and had such winsome,
coaxing little ways; the gentlemen, because she was a thorough
school-girl, free from every trace of young-ladyish affectation. It
delighted them to see her race up the hillsides, or skip from rock to
rock across the river bed, and when the time came for the return drive,
there was quite a struggle for the seat by her side in the coach. The
gentleman who gained it was, in Mildred's estimation, the most
interesting of the number. He was very tall, and so thin that his
clothes hung upon him in baggy folds. His skin was burnt to a dull
brown colour, and had a curious dried-up appearance, but his blue eyes
shone with a boy-like gleam. Mildred could not make up her mind whether
he were old or young, but as he remarked, in the course of conversation,
that he had just returned from a fifteen-years sojourn in Ceylon, and
that he had left England shortly after his twenty-first birthday, she
was able to calculate his age with little difficulty.
"I am interested in Ceylon. Do tell me all about it!" she said.
Whereat her companion smiled, and said that was a "large order." He
proceeded, however, in easy, chatty manner to give some interesting
accounts of the country, and his own adventures therein. He told, for
instance, of how darkness fell suddenly upon the land, and the tiny
streams swelled in an hour to the magnitude of a river; how, when
returning from a friend's bungalow one evening, the oil in his lantern
had given out, and he had been compelled to crawl on hands and knees
along the dangerous road; how, on the borders of a forest, he had seen
two snakes standing erect in deadly combat, and could remember a flight
of white butterflies, three miles in length and of such density that
they obscured the sun as with a cloud. He told stories of his
elephants, too; how they had worked for him in building the big
tea-factory on which he had been engaged, dragging the heavy stones up
the hillsides, and pushing them into their own particular niche, with
their ponderous feet. How steadily they worked, and with what
persistence, until the bell rang at four o'clock, when they instantly
turned tail, ambled off to their lines, and refused to do a stroke of
work until the next morning. "Fifteen years!" he sighed; "fifteen
years! It is a good slice out of a man's life. When I went out, I had
dreams of making my fortune in a few years and coming home to spend it
in England, but the days of rapid fortune making are over, and I shall
probably end my life in Ceylon. I wasn't much older than you are now,
Miss Mildred, when my guardian packed me off to an office in the city,
and I was obliged to sit copying letters at a desk from morning till
night. Bah! how I hated it. I made up my mind to go abroad the moment
I was twenty-one, and could claim my money, but when the time came, I
felt pretty bad at leaving. I had a special chum, with whom I lived and
worked, and played, and shared every joy and sorrow. It was a terrible
wrench to part from him--and from someone else--the lady who is now my
wife! You have been introduced to her, I think; there she is in the
blue dress, sitting in the front of the other coach."
"With the brown hat? Yes, I know; I like her. She looks awfully
sweet." Mildred nodded her head decisively, and her companion's eyes
twinkled in response.
"Oh, yes! she's quite satisfactory. Bullies me a little now and then,
you know--between ourselves; but one can't have everything in this
wicked world. Well, you see, she came out to me in due time. But
before there was any talk of that, another curious thing had happened.
I was sitting in front of my bungalow one afternoon, very low and
homesick, and tired to death after a long day's work. I was wondering
if I should ever live to get back to the old country, or to see my
friends again, when suddenly a man came round the corner of the road,
and marched up the garden path. He was an Englishman--that was seen at
the first glance; he was tall, and broad, and had a peculiar way of
holding his shoulders. I stared at him, not knowing if I were awake or
asleep, and when he was within a dozen yards, he raised his head to look
at me, and it was my chum!--the very fellow I had been thinking of five
minutes before, and despairing of ever seeing again!"
"Good gracious! What did you do? What did you say?"
Mr Muir smiled.
"Do? Say? I called out `Halloa!' and he called out `Halloa!' and we
shook hands and went into the bungalow. That seems strange to you,
doesn't it? If you had been in my place, and one of your school-fellows
had appeared upon the scene, you would have behaved rather differently,
I imagine!"
"Rather!" cried Mildred; "I can't think how you can have been so calm!
If I had been there, and had seen Bertha coming, I'd have whooped like a
red Indian, and rushed down, and simply smothered her with kisses. Men
must be awfully cold-blooded."
"I don't know about that. There are different ways of expressing one's
emotion. A grip of the hand goes a long way sometimes. Well, I was
fortunate, you see, for I had my chum with me once more. He had been as
lonely without me as I without him, and had made up his mind to come and
join me. We bought an estate between us, and now have a factory of our
own. I was grieved to see these good people drinking Chinese tea this
evening. I believe some wiseacres pretend that it is good for the
digestion, but what is that compared with encouraging the poor planters
in Ceylon? Remember, Miss Mildred, I rely upon you to drink nothing but
Indian tea for the rest of your life."
"Oh, I will!" promised Mildred readily. "I am quite interested in
Ceylon now, because of you, and of another planter who was a friend of a
great friend of mine. She told me a story about him only a few weeks
ago. He wasn't so fortunate as you. He was quite alone, and he tried
to grow quinine--cinchona, you call it, don't you? All the other
estates suffered from blight, except his, and he was promised ever so
much money for it--a fortune--but just when he was so happy, thinking of
coming home, the disease came on his estate too, and everything died
away before his eyes. All his work was lost, he had to begin over
again, and dig up the land to plant tea instead."
"Now, I wonder who told you that story!" Mr Muir cried. "I knew a
fellow who had exactly the same experience. Curiously enough, he came
home in the ship with me. We only landed a week ago. Do you mind
telling the name of your informant?"
"No, of course not. Why should I? It was one of my school-mistresses--
Miss Margaret Chilton. She and her eldest sister keep the school to
which we all go--Bertha, and Lois, and I. We were talking of
disappointments one day, and she told me this story as an illustration."
Mr Muir threw back his head, and began to laugh in a soft, amused
fashion, most mystifying to the hearer.
"Talk of coincidences!" he cried. "Talk of coincidences! Why, Miss
Mildred, it is the very man of whom I was speaking. Isn't that a
curious thing? I knew him intimately, and he has told me stories too--
about Miss Margaret Chilton among other people. And she is your
school-mistress? Tell me now, what is she like? I have heard so much
about her that I am interested to hear."
"She is a darling!"
"Er--so I was given to understand!" said Mr Muir drily. "And as to
appearance? Dark or fair, tall or short, plain or good-looking?"
Mildred reflected.
"She has brown eyes," she said slowly. "Oh, you may think that is not a
good description, but it is; because when you see Mardie's eyes, you
don't notice anything else. They are so clear, and sweet, and lovely,
and they look straight at you, as if they could see through and through,
but so gently and kindly that you don't mind it a bit."
Mildred opened her own eyes at her companion as she spoke, with a
comical imitation of Miss Margaret's expression, which made him laugh in
spite of himself.
"I see! I see! Well, I shouldn't wonder if I were to have the pleasure
of meeting Miss Chilton one of these fine days. If I do, I am sure I
shall recognise her by the description."
At this point the coach drew up before the railway station, and the
party separated to return to their various homes. Mr Muir whispered a
word or two in his wife's ear, and they came together to the window of
the carriage in which the girls were seated, to wish them a last
farewell.
"_Au revoir_, Miss Mildred!" he cried, his blue eyes twinkling with
amusement. "I am not going to say good-bye, for I expect to meet you
again, on a still more interesting occasion."
"I haven't the least idea what you mean, but I hope we shall!" returned
Mildred.