‘To feel every prompting of pleasure,
To know every pulsing of pain;
To dream of Life’s happiest measure,
And find all her promises vain.’
Susan sees him first, and, pushing Bonnie gently from her, rises to meet
him.
‘How do you do?’ says she.
‘That you, Wyndham?’ cries Crosby. ‘You are just in time to hear Tommy’s
story. Miss Moore has promised to lend him her support during the
recital.’
For all Crosby’s lightness of tone, there is a strange, scrutinizing
expression in his clever eyes as he looks at Wyndham. He knows that Ella
Moore’s presence here must prove a surprise to him; and how will he take
it? The girl seems well enough, but—And if Wyndham has been capable of
placing so close to this family of young, young people someone who—
He is studying Wyndham very acutely. But all that he can make out of
Wyndham’s face is surprise, and something that might be termed
relief—nothing more. As for the girl, she is the one that looks
confused. She rises, holding Tommy by her side, and looks appealingly at
Wyndham. She would have spoken, perhaps, but that the Rector, who has
not yet gone back to his study, takes up the parable.
‘We are very glad to have persuaded Miss Moore to come here to-day,’
says he, in a tone to be heard by everyone. ‘She has told me that you
came down this morning, bringing Miss Manning with you. That will be a
source of pleasure to us all, I am quite sure.’
He bows his courteous old head as amiably as though Miss Manning over
the road could hear him. It is a tribute to her perfections. After this
he buttonholes Wyndham, and draws him apart a bit.
‘She’s a nice girl, Wyndham—a nice girl, I really think. A most
guileless countenance! But not educated, you know. Betty and Susan—mere
children as they are—could almost teach her.’
The Rector sighs. He always regards his girls as having stood still
since his wife’s death. Children they were then, children they are now.
He has not seemed to live himself since her death. Since that, indeed,
all things have stood still for him.
‘Yes. But she seems intelligent—clever,’ says Wyndham, a little coldly.
‘I dare say. And now you have secured Miss Manning for her! That is a
wise step,’ says the Rector thoughtfully. ‘She owes you much, Wyndham. I
was glad when Susan persuaded her to come over here to-day. But I doubt
if she will consent to go further. She seems terrified at the thought of
being far from your—her home. Have you not yet discovered any trace of
that scoundrel Moore? The bond between them might surely be broken.’
‘There is no bond between them. Of that I am convinced,’ says Wyndham.
‘I trust not—I trust not,’ says the Rector. He makes a little gesture of
farewell, and goes back to his beloved study, his head bent, his hands
clasped behind his back, as usual.
‘We’re waiting for you, Mr. Wyndham,’ calls out Betty, arching her
slender neck to look over Dominick’s shoulder. The wind has caught her
fair, fluffy hair, and is ruffling it.
‘Yes; come along, Wyndham,’ says Crosby. ‘Tommy’s story is yet to tell.’
‘Better have one from you instead, Mr. Crosby,’ says Susan hastily. She
knows Tommy. ‘You can tell us all about lions and niggers and things.
You’d like to hear of lions and niggers, Tommy’—in a wheedling
tone—‘wouldn’t you?’
Wyndham by this time has joined the group, and, scarcely knowing how,
finds himself sitting on half of a rug, the other half of which belongs
to his tenant.
‘I want to tell my own story,’ says Tommy with determination. He is
evidently a boy possessed of much firmness, and one not to be ‘done’ by
anyone if he can help it.
‘But, Tommy,’ persists Susan, who has dismal reasons for dreading his
literary efforts, ‘I think you had better not tell one just now. We—that
is—’
‘Oh, do let him tell it!’ says Ella softly.
‘My dear Susan,’ says Crosby, ‘would you deprive us of an entertainment
so unique—one we may never enjoy again?’
‘Well, go on, Tommy,’ says Susan, resigning herself to the worst.
‘There once was a man,’ begins Tommy; and pauses. Silence reigns around.
‘An’ he fell into a big bit of water.’ The silence grows profounder.
‘’Twas as big as this’—making a movement of his short arms a foot or so
from the ground. At this there are distinct groans of fear. ‘An’ he was
drownded—a little fish ate him.’
‘Oh, Tommy!’ says Susan, in woeful tones. She can now pretend to be
frightened with a free heart. Evidently Tommy’s story this time is going
to be of the mildest order. ‘He didn’t really eat him?’
‘He did—he did!’ says Tommy, delighted at Susan’s fright. ‘He ate him
all up—every bit of him!’
Here Susan lets her face fall into her hands, and Tommy relents.
‘But he wasn’t killed,’ says he. He looks anxiously at Susan’s bowed
head. ‘No, he wasn’t.’ Susan lifts her head, and shakes it at him
reproachfully. ‘Well, he wasn’t, really,’ says Tommy again. This
repetition is not only meant as a help to Susan to mitigate her extreme
grief, but to give him pause whilst he makes up another chapter.
‘Oh, are you sure?’ asks Susan tragically.
‘I am. The fish swallowed him, but he came up again.’
‘Who gave the emetic?’ asks Dominick; but very properly no one attends
to him.
‘Yes; well, what’s after that?’ asks Betty.
‘Well—’ Tommy stares at the earth, and then, with happy inspiration,
adds: ‘The nasty witch got him.’
‘Poor old soul!’ says Carew.
‘The witch, Tommy? But—’
‘Yes, the witch’—angrily. ‘An’ then the goat said—’
‘Goat! What goat?’ asks Ella very naturally, considering all things.
‘That goat,’ says Tommy, who really is wonderful. He points his lovely
fat thumb down to where, in the distant field, a goat is browsing. His
wandering eye had caught it as he vaguely talked, and he had at once
embezzled it and twisted it into his imagination.
‘Yes?’ says Susan, seeing the child pause, and trying to help him. ‘The
goat?’
‘The goat an’ the witch—’ Long pause here, and plain incapacity to
proceed. Tommy has evidently come face to face with a _cul de sac_.
‘Hole in the ballad,’ says Dominick to Betty in a low tone.
‘Go on, Tommy,’ says Susan encouragingly. Really, Tommy’s story is so
presentable this time that she quite likes to give him a lift, as it
were.
‘Well, the witch fell down,’ says Tommy, goaded to endeavour, ‘an’ the
goat sat on her.’
‘Not on her,’ says Susan, with dainty protest. ‘You know you frightened
me once, Tommy, but now—’
‘Yes, they did, Susan—they did.’ In his excitement he has duplicated the
enemy. ‘They all sat down on her—every one of them, twenty of them.’
‘But, Tommy, you said there was only one goat.’
This is rash of Susan.
‘I don’t care,’ cries Tommy, who is of a liberal disposition. ‘There was
twenty of them. An’ they all sat down on her, first on her stomach,
an’’—solemnly turning himself and clasping both his fat hands over the
seat of his small breeches—‘an’ then on her here.’ He lifts his hands
and smacks them down again. He indeed most graphically illustrates his
‘here.’
There is an awful silence. Susan, stricken dumb, sits silent. She knew
how it would be if she let that wretched child speak.
Shamed and horrified, she draws back, almost praying that the earth may
open and swallow her up quick. She casts a despairing glance at Crosby,
to see how he has taken this horrible fiasco, before following Dathan
and Abiram; but what she sees in his face stops her prayers, and, in
fact, reverses them.
Crosby is shaking with laughter, and now, as she looks, catches Tommy in
his arms and hugs him.
Another moment and Betty breaks into a wild burst of laughter, after
which everyone else follows suit.
‘I’m going to publish your story, Tommy, at any price,’ says Mr. Crosby,
putting Tommy back from him upon his knee, and gazing with interest at
that tiny astonished child. ‘There will be trouble with the publishers.
But I’ll get it done at all risks to life and limb. I don’t suppose I
shall be spoken to afterwards by any respectable person, but that is of
little moment when a literary gem is in question.’
Tommy, not understanding, but scenting fun, laughs gaily.
‘I don’t think you ought to encourage him like that,’ says Susan, whose
pretty mouth, however, is sweet with smiles.
‘One should always encourage a genius,’ says Crosby, undismayed.
There is a little stir here. Tommy has wriggled out of Crosby’s lap and
has gone back to Ella, who receives him with—literally—open arms.
Wyndham is watching her curiously. Her manner all through Tommy’s
absorbingly interesting tale has been a revelation to him. He has found
out for one thing that he has never heard her laugh before—at all
events, not like that. No, he has never heard her really laugh before,
and, indeed, perhaps poor Ella, in all her sad young life, has never
laughed like that until now. It has been to the shrewd young barrister
as though he has looked upon her for the first time to-day after quite
two months of acquaintance—he who prides himself, and has often been
complimented, on his knowledge of character, his grasp of a client’s
real mind from his first half-hour with him or her.
Her mirth has astonished him. She, the pale, frightened girl, to laugh
like that! There has been no loudness in her mirth, either; it has been
soft and refined, if very gay and happy. She has laughed as a girl might
who has been born to happiness in every way—to silken robes and delicate
surroundings, and all the paraphernalia that go to make up the life of
those born into families that can count their many grandfathers.
Once or twice he has told himself half impatiently—angry with the charge
laid upon his unwitting shoulders—that the girl is good-looking. Now he
tells himself something more: that she is lovely, with that smile upon
her face, as she sits—all unconscious of his criticism—with Tommy in her
arms, and
‘Eyes
Upglancing brightly mischievous, a spring
Of brimming laughter welling on the brink
Of lips like flowers, small caressing hands
Tight locked,’
around the lucky Tommy’s waist.
But now she puts Tommy (who has evidently fallen a slave to her charms,
and repudiates loudly her right to give him away like this) down on his
sturdy feet, and comes a little forward to where Susan is standing.
‘I’m afraid I must go now,’ says she.
‘Oh, not yet,’ says Susan; ‘there is plenty of time. It isn’t as if you
had to drive five miles to get to your home.’
‘Still—I think—’ She looks so anxious that Susan, who is always
charming, understands her.
‘If you must go,’ whispers she sweetly—‘if you would rather—well, then,
do go. But to-morrow, and every other day, you must come back to us.
Carew—’
‘I’m here,’ says Carew, coming up, and blushing as well as the best of
girls as he takes Ella’s hand. ‘I’ll see you home,’ says he.
‘I don’t think it will be necessary,’ says Wyndham shortly. Then he
stops, confounded at his own imprudence, considering all the
circumstances. Yet the words have fallen from him without volition of
his own. ‘The fact is,’ says he quickly, ‘I too am going now, and will
be able to see Miss Moore safely within her gate.’
Carew frowns, and Susan comes to the rescue.
‘We’ll all go,’ cries she gaily.
‘The very thing,’ says Crosby. ‘That will give me a little more of your
society, as I also must drag myself away.’
The ‘your’ is so very general that nobody takes any notice of it, and
they all go up the small avenue together.
‘You were surprised to see me here?’ says Ella in a nervous whisper to
Wyndham, who has doggedly taken possession of her, in spite of the
knowledge that such a proceeding will in the end tell against him.
‘I confess I was’—stiffly.
‘You are displeased?’
‘On the contrary, you know I always advised you to show yourself—to defy
your enemies. You can defy them, you know.’
‘Yes; but—I mean that, after all I said to you about my dislike, my
fear, of leaving the Cottage, you must think it queer of me to be here
to-day.’
‘I do not, indeed. I think it only natural that you should break through
such a melancholy determination. Besides, no doubt’—with increasing
coldness—‘you had an inducement.’
‘Yes, yes; I had,’ says she quickly.
‘Ah!’ A pause. ‘Someone you have seen lately?’
‘Quite lately.’
Second pause, and prolonged.
‘I suppose you will soon see a way out of all your difficulties?’
No doubt she had fallen in love with Crosby, and he with her, and—
‘No; I don’t think there is any chance of that,’ says she mournfully.
‘But when Su—Miss Barry asked me to come here, I couldn’t resist it. You
can see for yourself what an inducement she is.’
Susan! is it only Susan? He pulls himself up sharply. Well, and if so,
where is the matter for rejoicing? Of course, being left in a sense her
guardian by the Professor, he is bound to feel an interest in her; but a
vague interest such as that should not be accompanied by this quick
relief, this sudden sensation of—of what?
Dominick, just behind him, is singing at the top of his lungs—sound
ones:
‘As I walked out wid Dinah,
De other afternoon,
De day could not be finer,
Ho! de ring-tailed coon!’
He is evidently pointing this nigger melody at Betty, who has been rash
enough to go walking out with him. She has gone even farther. She has
condescended to sing a second to his exceedingly loud first, a stroke of
genius on her part, as it has taken the wind out of his sails so far as
his belief in his powers of teasing her (on this occasion, at all
events) are concerned.
Mr. Wyndham takes the opportunity of the second verse coming to a
thrilling conclusion to break off his conversation with Ella. And now,
indeed, they are all at the little green gate, and are saying their
adieus to her. And presently they have all gone away again, and Ella,
standing inside, feels as if life and joy and all things have been shut
off from her with the locking of that small green gate.
* * * * *
‘Isn’t she pretty?’ cries Susan enthusiastically, when they have bidden
good-bye to Crosby and Wyndham too, and are back again on their own
small lawn.
‘She’s a regular bud,’ says Dom, striking a tragic attitude. He doesn’t
mean anything really, but Carew, with darkling brow, goes up to him.
‘I think you ought to speak more respectfully of her,’ says he. ‘It
isn’t because she is alone in the world that one should throw stones at
her.’
‘Betty, I appeal to you,’ says Dominick. ‘Did I throw a stone? Come,
speak up. I take this as a distinct insult. The man who would throw a
stone at a woman—He’s gone!’ says Mr. Fitzgerald, staring at Carew’s
disappearing form. ‘Well, I do call that mean. And I had arranged a
peroration that would have astonished the natives. Anyway,
Susan’—turning—‘what did I say to offend him? Called her a bud. Isn’t a
bud a nice thing? I declare he’s as touchy about her as though she were
his best girl.’
‘What’s a best girl?’ asks Betty.
‘The one you like best.’
‘Well, perhaps she’s his’—growing interested. ‘Susan, I do believe he is
in love with her.’
‘Do you?’ says Susan thoughtfully. And then: ‘Oh no! Boys never fall in
love.’
‘Dom thinks they do,’ says Betty, turning a saucy glance on Fitzgerald.
She flings a rose at him. ‘Who’s your best girl?’ asks she.
‘Need you ask?’ returns that youth with his most sentimental air.
‘I don’t think I quite approve of her,’ says Miss Barry, joining in the
conversation at this moment, and shaking her curls severely; ‘I thought
her a little free this afternoon.’
‘Oh, auntie!’
‘Certainly, Susan! Most distinctly free.’
‘I thought her one of the gentlest and quietest girls I ever met,’ says
Carew, who has strolled back to them after his short ebullition of
temper—unable, indeed, to keep away.
‘What do you know of girls?’ says Miss Barry scornfully.
‘I’m sure she’s gentle,’ says Dominick, who is so devoted to Carew that
he would risk a great deal—even his friendship—to keep him out of
trouble, ‘and very, very good; because she is beyond all doubt most
femininely dull.’
‘Pig!’ says Betty, in a whisper. She makes a little movement towards
him, and a second later gets a pinch and a wild yell out of him.
‘What I say I maintain,’ says Miss Barry magisterially. ‘She may be a
nice girl, a gentle girl, the grandest girl that was ever known—I’m the
last in the world to depreciate anyone—but who is she? That’s what I
want to know. And no one knows who she is. Perhaps of the lower classes,
for all we know. And, indeed, I noticed a few queer turns of speech. And
when I said she was free, Susan, I meant it. I heard her distinctly call
that child’—pointing to him—‘“Tommy.” Now, if she is, as I firmly
believe—your father is a person of no discrimination, you know—a person
of a lower grade than ourselves, didn’t it show great freedom to do
that? Yes, she distinctly said “Tommy.”’
‘Well, she didn’t say “Hell and Tommy,” any way,’ says Dominick, who
sometimes runs over to London to see the theatres.
‘If she had,’ says Miss Barry with dignity—she has never seen the
outside of a theatre—‘I should have had no hesitation whatsoever in
sending for the sergeant and giving her in charge.’