Mrs Thornton took counsel with her husband as to the best form of
hospitality she could show to the squire's visitors.
"I want to be one of the first to entertain them formally. It is a duty
in our position," she explained. "The girls have been to tea several
times, and that dear Mollie runs up to the nursery as naturally as if
she were at home; but I think we ought to do more. The squire will
expect it; and then the question is, dear--what can we do?"
"Just so." The vicar smiled, half amused, half quizzical. "The means
at our disposal are distinctly limited. We can't ask them to dinner,
because the staff is incapable of cooking and serving an extensive
meal."
"And there are only three sherry-glasses left, and Mary broke the round
glass dish last week--the one I always used for the trifle. And the
dinner-service... We really must buy a new dinner-service, Stanford!"
"We really must, Agnes--some time! I think all the objections taken
together put the dinner-party out of the question. Would not a somewhat
more formal tea--"
"No." Mrs Thornton shook her head decidedly. "A formal tea is the
most depressing function imaginable. If it was a little later on, I
would suggest a hay-party. As it is, I am afraid it must be a garden-
party, pure and simple."
The vicar laughed.
"Simple, it certainly would be. Our poor little lawn, one tennis-court,
and the flower-garden a mass of weeds! We can't afford a band of
minstrels, or even the ordinary ices and hothouse fruits. I am afraid
it might be rather a failure, Agnes."
But Mrs Thornton refused to be discouraged.
"Nonsense, dear! People don't expect extravagant entertainments at a
vicarage! The children and I can undertake the weeding, and when that
is done the dear old herbaceous borders will look charming! The lawn is
not big, but there is delightful shade beneath the beech-trees, and we
can draw the piano up to the drawing-room window, and get a few people
to sing for us--Maud Bailey and Mrs Reed; and I believe Mr Druce has a
fine voice. I'll ask him to be very kind, and give us a song. As for
refreshments, I can give good tea and coffee, and the best cream for
miles around, and people can exist without ices for once in a way.
Given a bright, fine day, I could manage beautifully!"
"I have no doubt you could. But why go through the ceremony of asking
my advice, Mistress Thornton, when your mind has been made up from the
beginning? Go your ways--go your ways! I wash my hands of all
responsibility!" cried the vicar, laughing, as he walked back to his
study, leaving his wife to sit down to her desk and make out a lengthy
list of guests, which included everyone of note for miles round.
During the days to come Mr Thornton often sympathised with his wife on
the amount of work she had undertaken in order to entertain the squire's
guests; but, even to his unobservant eyes, it was apparent that, so far
from being exhausted, she throve beneath it, and appeared brighter and
younger than for years past. All work and no play has an even more
depressing effect upon Jill than on Jack, and Mrs Thornton was by
instinct a hospitable creature, who would have loved nothing better than
a houseful of guests and a constant succession of entertainments. With
small means, a large family, and a straggling parish, her time and
energy were for the most part engrossed in sheer hard work, so that the
prospect of a little "jollification," as she laughingly expressed it,
came as a welcome variety.
The invitations to the Court were sent out first, to make sure of the
most important guests, and down came the girls with notes of acceptance,
and a hundred curious questions.
"Who is coming? What are you going to do? What dresses shall we wear?
Can we help?" they asked eagerly; whereupon Mrs Thornton laughed, and
replied hesitatingly--
"It is most incorrect; you ought to know nothing of the make-shifts, but
just drive down to enjoy the completed effect; but, yes,--I cannot
resist the pleasure of your company. Come, if you like, and I'll
promise you some real hard work."
"That's right; and you'll find us so useful! We have been born and
brought up on make-shifts, and can make anything out of nothing, and a
box of tacks--can't we, Ruth?" cried Mollie, in the brutally outspoken
manner which always brought a flush into her sister's face.
It was not so much foolish shame at the fact of poverty, but the stab of
painful repugnance which came with the remembrance of the bareness and
lack of beauty which characterised the old life. After a month's
sojourn at the Court the day of small things seemed far away, and she
shrank at the possibility of returning to it as a permanency.
When Mrs Thornton began to enumerate her difficulties, and escorted the
girls from one room to another to ask their advice upon various knotty
points, it was like the probing of a wound to Ruth's sensitive nerves.
The house itself was roomy and well built, but in a hopeless state of
disrepair. The paint was worn and dingy; the wallpapers so old-
fashioned and discoloured that all Mrs Thornton's painstaking efforts
after cheerfulness and beauty were foiled by the inartistic background.
"I shed tears over the drawing-room paper when I was first married,"
said Mrs Thornton, with a laugh and a shrug. "But, as one gets older,
there are so many more serious things to cry over that one learns to be
philosophical. I thought I might put some big, spreading branches in
these old pots to cover the walls as much as possible, for we must have
some rooms available in case of a shower. A wet day is too terrible a
catastrophe to contemplate, so we won't even imagine it. Given sunshine
and unlimited borrowing, we can struggle through. Think of it, my
dears--I have invited over a hundred people, and we possess twelve
teaspoons!"
Mollie gurgled with laughter in her hearty, infectious manner.
"I'd give up sugar for the day, and do without. That's one off the
list. Shall we ask the butler to send down a supply? I'm sure he has
hundreds stowed away in those great plate-chests."
"My dear, no! I should not think of it!" cried Mrs Thornton, aghast.
"I can manage quite well without troubling the squire. Pray don't
repeat any of my thoughtless remarks to him. My husband says that my
tongue runs away with me far too often."
Ruth protested politely, but Mollie preserved an unusual silence for the
rest of the visit. She was evidently thinking hard, and the result of
her cogitations was, that when she returned to the Court she paid a
surprise visit to Mr Farrell in his sanctum.
The old man was sitting reading in his favourite chair, and as he looked
up it struck Mollie that he looked more alert than she had seen him
since her arrival. The voice in which he answered her greeting was
certainly less wearied and fretful than usual. He looked, if such a
miracle could be believed, almost pleased to see her.
"Well,--so you have returned from your wanderings!"
"Yes, here I am, come to bother you again. There's a whole half-hour
before you need begin to dress, and I've something very important to
talk to you about."
"What does that mean, pray? More new dresses? I should have thought
you could hardly have come to the end of the last supply by this time."
"Goodness, no! They will last for years. It is something far more
important."
Mollie seated herself on a low chair directly opposite the old man,
leant her elbows on her knees, her chin on her hands, and said
hesitatingly--
"Uncle Bernard!"
"Mary!"
"Do you remember the first evening we were here, when you spoke to us
about our visit? You said that you might possibly allow each of us in
turn to act as master or mistress of the ceremonies for a short time?"
"I believe I did say something of the kind. It occurred to me that it
might be an interesting experiment."
"And did you mean that we could really do what we liked, about money and
everything else, just as if we were really and truly the real owner in
your place?"
Mr Farrell smiled somewhat grimly.
"If your sister asked me that question, I should say `Yes.' Knowing as
I do your capacity for extravagance, I am a little more cautious.
Within reasonable limits that is, however, what I meant to imply."
"Ah!" sighed Mollie deeply. "But it all depends on what you call
reasonable. At any rate, you can only refuse, and things can be no
worse than they are at present. Please, Uncle Bernard, may I begin my
reign from to-day?"
"Your reign! You put it forcibly, my dear--more so than is perhaps
quite pleasant in my ears. And you are the youngest of the four; your
turn should come last, not first. When the others have had their
trial--"
"But they have never asked for it; they don't want it, and I do; and you
said nothing about taking turns when you made the suggestion. If you
let me begin, they could take warning from my mistakes. I don't think
you would find they disliked the arrangement. Do, please, be kind and
say `Yes.'"
Mr Farrell reflected for a moment, bringing the tips of his fingers
together.
"As you say, you are the first to express any desire to take me at my
word. If it pleases you to assume the reins of government for a short
time, I have no objection."
"You mean it really? I can begin at once, and give what orders I like?"
"Subject, as I have said, to some possible restrictions if your
enthusiasm carries you too far. There is evidently some big scheme
looming behind this request. You had better let me know the worst at
once. What is to be your first extravagance?"
Mollie's head still rested in the cup of her hands. She looked at him
steadily, with a little flame of determination in her grey eyes.
"I am going to have the vicarage painted and papered from top to bottom.
It's disgracefully shabby! The paper is hanging off the walls in some
places, and where it isn't, it would be almost better if it were, it is
so ugly and worn. It is too bad to expect Mr and Mrs Thornton to do
all the hard, depressing work of the parish and keep bright and cheerful
themselves, when their home is enough to give the blues to a clown! It
looks as if it hadn't been touched for a century!"
Mr Farrell lowered his eyelids and sat in a grim silence, while the
clock ticked a full two minutes. Mollie, watching his face, saw the
thin lips grow thinner and thinner, as they were pressed the more firmly
together; the horizontal lines in his forehead deepened into furrows.
There was no mistaking the fact that he was displeased, and deeply
displeased, even before the cold eyes met hers once more.
"I had no intention now, or at any other time, of allowing you to assume
control over the whole parish! My proposition referred simply to this
house and your own entertainment. I am still capable of looking after
my own property."
"But--" began Mollie, and stopped short.
Even her courage failed before the obvious retort that the property was
not looked after, but allowed to fall into dilapidation; but Mr Farrell
understood without the need of words, and his eyes flashed with anger.
"You must permit me to judge for myself! When my day is over, whoever
comes into possession can squander my money as he or she sees fit, but I
cannot hurry the time forward, however much you may desire it. You must
be patient and wait. It may come sooner than you think."
Mollie sprang to her feet with an exclamation of mingled pain and anger.
"Oh, Uncle Bernard, how cruel! How can you say anything so horrid and
unjust! It isn't true, and you know it isn't true, and I don't deserve
it! I only asked for what you yourself suggested."
"I never suggested that you should interfere with my property, and
criticise what I had chosen to do or left undone. As for not deserving
reproach, you must have made very sure of stepping into my shoes since
you wish to wear them while I am still here. No doubt I appear to you a
mere cumberer of the ground; but it is my ground, I would have you
remember. You cannot take liberties with it yet awhile."
"I don't want it! I never want it! I'll go home to-morrow! You have
no right to taunt me like this!" cried Mollie, trembling with such a
storm of indignation and wounded feeling as she had rarely known in her
bright, easy-going existence.
A rush of ugly words came to her lips, and struggled for utterance,
while Mr Farrell sank back in his chair, and lay crouched against the
cushions, one thin hand pressed heavily over his heart. The look, the
action, brought Mollie to herself with a stab of recollection.
Whatever he had said to wound her pride, she had no right to forget his
weakness, his danger, his lonely, piteous age. Anger died a rapid
death, and gave place to an even keener sympathy. When Mr Farrell
looked up again, it was to find the grey eyes wet with tears, and the
lips trembling with emotion.
"Oh, you poor old man--you poor old man! Why will you make it so
difficult? Why won't you let us love you and be a comfort, instead of a
trouble? We would, if you would allow us. We want to, but you keep us
at arm's length, and scold and sneer. I am not thinking of myself. I
am young and strong, and I have my home and my dear little mother. I
shall be happy, whatever happens. It's _you_ I am sorry for! I hate to
see you ill and lonely. You have given a great deal to me; can't you be
generous enough to take something in return? There are only two months
left. The time is nearly half over. Can't we be friends--real
friends--until the end?"
She drew nearer as she spoke, and saw no rebuff in the watching face,
until at last she sank on her knees before him, and timidly touched his
hand.
"Uncle Bernard, speak! Say something to me!"
Still the old man hesitated; but his hand lay quietly in hers, and did
not try to escape.
"What can I say?" he asked slowly at last. "I believe you are a good
child; I believe you are honest; but my days are past for making
friendships. I have felt deeply in my time, but the power of loving
died away with everything else which made life worth living. I cannot
promise what is impossible."
"But you can at least give me a chance of loving you. I won't ask any
more favours if you will just talk to me a little sometimes, without
sneering at me, and let me walk with you about the grounds and be a
little bit of a companion. Will you? You might get to like me a little
bit in time, and it would not be quite so lonely."
"I can imagine things less impossible. You are a good child; but
remember, Mollie, my liking or not liking has nothing to do with my
choice of an heir. The condition to which I referred might easily apply
to one who appealed to me in no other way. It is only right to warn
you."
But the listener took no heed of the warning. Her face was one radiant
beam of delight.
"You called me `Mollie'!" she cried. "It was the very first time! That
really does sound as if we were going to be friends?"