Mrs Fortescue's morning had been so exciting that she really could not
settle down at searching through her house linen for possible or
impossible holes during the afternoon. It was her bounden duty to go to
see the Arbuthnots. She ought to visit them after the delightful dinner
they had given her on Christmas Day. Accordingly, putting on her most
becoming dress, she started off between three and four o'clock in the
direction of their house. She must meet the train which would bring her
darlings back to her between six and seven, but during the intervening
hours she might spend her time quite comfortably with Susie, chatting to
her, of course--not on _the_ subject, but on every possible subject
which led towards it, approaching it, as it were, by every devious path
within her knowledge.
Susie was upright, honest as the day. Mrs Fortescue was a
crooked-minded woman; but very straight people are, as a rule, apt not
to see the crookedness of their friends. Susie liked every one at
Langdale, just as much as the Colonel liked them. She was heartily
pleased to see her friend, and told her so, frankly. Susie was not
wearing her grey barege, and the supporting silk lining could not
therefore sustain her; but she was very neatly dressed in an old black
serge which she had altered with her own clever fingers, and which
fitted her plump form to perfection. Round her neck she were a neat
linen collar, and had linen cuffs round her plump wrists. Her hands
were ringless and very fat. Her face, always highly coloured, was a
little redder than usual, because she had been taking advantage of the
fine morning and spending it in the garden. She loved gardening, and
there was not a day, either summed or winter, which did not give her
something to do in her favourite employment.
"Now," she said, when she saw Mrs Fortescue; "this _is_ good! You have
come to tea, of course. I will order some hot cakes. They can be made
in a twinkling. I have desired cook to do them from a new recipe which
I happened to cut out of a penny paper last week. How nice you look,
Mrs Fortescue! and how are the darling girls? What a decided beauty
Florence is turning into!"
"Of course you know," said Mrs Fortescue, throwing meaning into her
tone, "that both girls went to London this morning to spend the day with
their guardian and lawyer, Mr Timmins, of Pye's Court."
"No, I didn't know it," said Susie. Then she added, seeing that
something was expected of her: "Did they go alone?"
"Well, they went together first-class, and were met at the station by
Mr Timmins' confidential clerk. They are coming back to night."
"Dear children!" said Susie, in her sweet voice. "I am so fond of them
both."
"And they are fond of you, Susie."
"I wonder what they will do in the future," said Susie. "Is it really
true that they have left school?"
"Yes, it is quite true," said Mrs Fortescue. "I am sorry," answered
Susie.
"Sorry? What do you mean? Florence is eighteen and Brenda nineteen."
"Yes," said Susie; "but one only begins to appreciate school at that
age. Before, one is too young and lessons seem a useless drudgery.
One's mind is not big enough or broad enough to take in the advantages
of learning. It is a great, great pity that Mr Timmins does not give
them two more years at Newnham or Girton or some such place."
"Oh, my dear?" said Mrs Fortescue, throwing up her hands. "How can you
say anything so horrible! Newnham or Girton! They would be simply
ruined; and men do so hate learned women."
"Do they?" said Susie. She paused reflectively. "I have known one or
two," she said, after a pause, "whom men have loved very much. I don't
think it is the learning part that men hate; it is something else which
now and then the learned woman possesses. Perhaps it is pride in her
own attainments. Surely no sensible man can dislike a woman for knowing
things."
"They do--they all do," said Mrs Fortescue. "My dear late lamented
did. He told me he could not even have looked at me if I had had a
smattering of Latin or Greek; and I have heard many other men say the
same."
"Then they must be quite worthless," said Susie, "and we needn't bother
about them. Ah! and here comes the tea. Put it here, please, Peters."
The servant arranged the very tempting tea on a little table, and Susie
stood up to perform her duties as hostess. She was certainly remarkably
plain, but, somehow, no one ever thought her plain when they looked at
her, for goodness shone out of her eyes and seemed to radiate from her
stout little person. Mrs Fortescue was quite ready to do justice to
the excellent tea, the rich cream, the plum cake, and that new recipe
for hot cakes which Susie's cook had so successfully carried out and
which resulted in such appetising, melting morsels, that the good woman
was consoled for the loss of one of her few bottles of champagne, and
for the fact that she knew very well that Major Reid had hated his
lunch.
"Do you know," she said, as she finished her meal, "that I never enjoy
my tea anywhere as I do here. Besides, I had a hot lunch to-day. Who
do you think came and had lunch with me?"
"How can I guess?" said Susie. "I suppose you were all alone, as the
girls were in London."
"No: I was not alone. I had a visitor--a man."
"A man?" said Susie, opening her round eyes.
"Yes; no less a person than Major Reid. Now, what do you think of
that?"
"Oh; I like him very much," said Susie.
"Do you, now? I wonder why?"
"Why," said Susie, "because I think he is nice. He is very poor, of
course, but he makes the best of his poverty, and he is very intelligent
and fond of reading."
"Perhaps you like Michael too," said Mrs Fortescue.
"I am exceedingly fond of Michael," said Susie. "He is a dear boy."
"A boy?" said Mrs Fortescue. "Do you call him that? He is a man; he
is twenty-four."
"I call twenty-four quite a boy," answered Susie. "Mike is a great
friend of mine: we have always been chums, and always will be, for that
matter."
Mrs Fortescue sat quite still. She longed to add something further;
but Susie sat smiling to herself, for she remembered Michael's request
that he might take Florence into dinner on Christmas night, and she also
remembered the fact that he had walked through the snow and slush in
order to secure his heart's desire. It would in Susie's eyes be a
delightful match if Mike and Florence married. But she was not going to
speak of it. Mrs Fortescue's small black eyes sparkled.
"Well, well," she said; "we all have our tastes. I will own that in a
place like Langdale one is apt to appreciate any fairly good-looking
young man. But out in the great world where one meets them in shoals--
simply in shoals--a person like Michael Reid would not have much
chance."
"Do you think so?" said Susie very quietly. "I am sorry for the great
world, then."
"You know nothing about it, Susie."
"That is true," answered Susie, who might have retorted, "No more do
you," but it was not her habit ever to say anything unkind.
"Well," said Mrs Fortescue, "I suppose I must be going. I have to meet
the dear girls, and they will have lots to tell me. In all probability,
Susie, I shall be leaving Langdale myself this spring, for no doubt Mr
Timmins will wish me to undertake the chaperonage of my two sweet girls
until they marry. I look to their both making great matches, with their
wealth and good looks; for they are both good-looking. They ought to do
exceedingly well in the marriage market."
"If you mean by that," said Susie, the colour rushing into her face,
"that they will marry men worthy of them--I mean good in the best sense
of the word--good, and true and brave, then I trust they will. But if
you mean anything else, Mrs Fortescue; if you mean men who will seek
them for their wealth--for I presume they are rich, although really I
know nothing about it, and what is more, I don't care--then I sincerely
trust they won't marry that sort of man."
"Oh," said Mrs Fortescue, "you don't understand--you don't care whether
they are rich or not--"
"Not one scrap," said Susie. "How can riches add to the brightness of
Florence's eyes or the affection of Brenda's manner? But if riches make
them a little more comfortable, I hope they will have sufficient, though
we don't require much money, do we, Mrs Fortescue? I know that is not
what the world would call rich," (Mrs Fortescue hated Susie for making
this remark) "and most certainly father and I are not. We just contrive
and contrive, and always have enough for a jolly Christmas dinner when
we can really entertain our friends. I don't believe any two people in
all the world are happier than my darling dad and myself, and it doesn't
come from riches, for we have to be very careful. Oh, no; rich people
are not the happiest, I do assure you on that point."
Mrs Fortescue could not help saying, "I do not agree with you, Susie,"
and she could not help giving a contemptuous glance at the
old-fashioned, very plump little figure with the red face and honest
round eyes. But having eaten as much as she could of Susie's very
excellent food, and found it quite impossible to draw Susie Arbuthnot
into any conversation of what she considered a truly interesting nature,
she left the house and amused herself doing some shopping until it was
time to go to the railway station to meet the girls.
There Florence alone confronted her--Florence, with a white and anxious
face, although all trace of that fit of weeping which had overcome her
when she parted from Brenda had disappeared from her features.
"Why, Flo--Flo, darling! Where is your sister? Where is my Brenda?"
"Brenda is staying for a few days with Lady Marian Dixie."
"But I knew nothing of this. She did not take up any clothes."
"We are to send her some. Mr Timmins has sent his clerk down with me,
and he is coming back to the house with us now in order that I may pack
some of Brenda's things and send them to town by him. If we are quick
we shall catch the half-past seven train, and she will get what things
she most requires by to-night."
"I have a cab waiting for you, my love. This is very unexpected. Did
you say Lady Marian Dixie?"
"Yes," said Florence; "an old friend of my mother's."
"Well, you will have a great deal to tell me," said Mrs Fortescue; "and
how very tired you look, dear."
"I am not specially tired, but I should like to get home as fast as
possible in order to give Andrews a trunk full of clothes to take back
to Brenda."
"Oh, surely Brenda won't be away so long as that."
Florence made no reply. She motioned to Andrews to get on the box
beside the driver, and they returned to Mrs Fortescue's house almost in
silence. Mrs Fortescue felt that something had happened, but did not
dare to inquire. She kept repeating to herself at intervals during
their drive back--
"Lady Marian Dixie--a friend of the girls' mother! It sounds very nice;
still, it is queer. Surely, surely Mr Timmins could not be so mad as
to allow Lady Marian to conduct the girls about in London society! It
would be too cruel to me, after all I have done for them."
When they reached the house, the cabman was desired to wait. Florence
ran up to their room and, with Mrs Fortescue's help, filled a trunk
with Brenda's smartest things. Mrs Fortescue talked all the time, but
Florence was almost silent. The trunk was speedily packed, and the old
clerk took it back to London with him.
Then the two ladies, the old and the young, went into the drawing-room
and faced each other.