MRS. ADRIAN’S CONVERSION.
Ruth had no necessity to find a home for Gertie, after all. Her mother,
after having thoroughly aired her objections, and proved beyond a doubt
that Gertie was endeavouring to turn her out of house and home, and
that Ruth was endeavouring to bring her grey hairs with sorrow to the
grave, had suddenly veered round, taken the child under her immediate
protection, and insisted upon Ruth keeping her as long as ever she
liked.
Ruth, who had grown sincerely attached to Gertie, was only too
delighted to take advantage of this change of attitude, and from that
moment Josh Heckett’s grand-daughter was treated as one of the family.
Mrs. Adrian’s conversion had been brought about in a very singular
manner.
Ruth’s great friend in all her troubles was her father. He would come
from Patagonia or the South Sea Islands in a second if she asked him a
question, and he had always the heartiest sympathy with all her little
schemes.
Ruth asked her father’s advice about Gertie. What was she to do? She
couldn’t send the child back. Of course, she intended that Heckett
should know Gertie was safe, but she was determined, if possible, to
keep her out of his clutches. She had hoped to be able to keep her for
a little while until she could decide what to do, but her mother was so
much against Gertie remaining.
Mr. Adrian laid down his book.
‘Then you really wish to keep the child near you for a while?’ he said.
‘I do, indeed, father. I am in some measure responsible for her leaving
home.’
Ruth blushed as she spoke, for she remembered it was her anxiety to
hear about Marston which had brought Gertie’s trouble upon her.
Mr. Adrian thought for a moment, then he rubbed his hands in evident
glee. ‘I have it, my dear,’ he said. ‘Your mother’s objection to the
child is the only thing we have to get over. Leave it to me to remove
that.’
That evening, after Gertie had gone to bed, the usual little group sat
in the dining-room.
Ruth was busy making nicknacks for a charity bazaar in which she was
interested, Mrs. Adrian was knitting, and Mr. Adrian was deep in the
adventures of a missionary who had gone out to Africa, and who for the
first few hundred pages used his gun a good deal oftener than his
Bible.
Mr. Adrian read a few choice passages aloud, and speedily aroused the
indignation of his better half.
‘Missionary!’ exclaimed that good lady. ‘Well, if he’s a fair specimen
of missionaries, I’m sorry for the heathen. Its a queer way of
converting a black man to put a bullet through him.
‘But, my dear,’ urged Mr. Adrian, ‘it was in self-defence.’
‘Self-fiddlesticks! What business had the man there, poking his nose
into their wigwams and interfering? How would you like a black man to
walk in here and begin lecturing you? You’d try to turn him out,
wouldn’t you? And then because you did that he’d turn round and shoot
you, and say it was self-defence. Bah! I haven’t patience with all this
mischief-making in outlandish parts.’
‘But, my dear, much good is done. This missionary was a very famous
man, and he converted them at last. Before he left, the natives used
knives and forks instead of their fingers, and the king of one very
ferocious tribe, of cannibal habits, had all his prisoners of war
roasted on Saturday afternoon to avoid Sunday cooking. How would
civilization be spread, my dear but for these explorers?’
‘Civilization!’ exclaimed Mrs. Adrian, dropping half-a-dozen stitches
in her excitement. ‘Don’t you think there’s room for a little more
civilization at home before we begin to give it away to the
blackamoors? Civilization ought to begin at home.’
‘You are wrong, my dear,’ said Mr. Adrian, closing his book and
preparing for battle. ‘What do you say, Ruth?’
‘I think we ought to do a good deal more at home than we do,’ said Ruth
gently. ‘I think sometimes the black heathen get a great deal more
sympathy than the white.’
Mrs. Adrian declared Ruth was a sensible girl, and fired another volley
at the enemy. The discussion had grown slightly heated when Mr. Adrian
introduced the subject of Gertie, suggesting that the sooner Ruth found
a home for her the better.
Then Mrs. Adrian fired up. Of course he objected to Gertie because she
was an English child; if she’d been a black or a brown child he would
have given her the best room in the house; as she was white and English
she was to be turned out at once.
The more Mr. Adrian opposed Gertie, the more Mrs. Adrian championed
her, until at last, for the sake of peace and quietness, the master of
the house gave way, and consented, ‘to please his wife’s fad,’ that the
child should stay as long as Ruth liked.
Thus were the heathen pressed into the service, and thus did Mr. Adrian
win the battle by pretending to be beaten. It was not the first time he
had won over his wife to his way of thinking by pretending to take an
opposite view.
From that moment Gertie, in the eyes of Mrs. Adrian, was the outward
and visible sign of a triumph gained over her _betes noires_, the
foreign ladies and gentlemen of missionary books of travel. The child
by her presence represented a great moral victory, and Mrs. Adrian was
her devoted champion from that hour.
By her gentle nature and loving ways she rapidly endeared herself to
all. Ruth was delighted, and her mind was relieved of a great burden.
When Gertie had been with them a fortnight there was no one beneath the
roof that would not have grieved sincerely and felt it a personal loss
to be deprived of her sunshiny presence.
Her early days with the Adrians were uneventful. At her earnest request
Ruth had not apprised Heckett of her whereabouts. The child pleaded so
hard, and seemed so terrified, that Ruth contented herself with sending
a message by a trustworthy person to the old dog-fancier that his
grand-daughter was in a good home.
But the old man’s attempt to find out where the home was situated, or
who was at the bottom of the child’s mysterious conduct, failed
altogether. The message only reached him in roundabout way, being left
with the person who kept the shop below his rooms, which Heckett only
visited occasionally now.
The first great event in Gertie’s new life was the charity bazaar, at
which, to her intense delight, she was allowed to assist at Ruth’s
stall.
She came back full of it, and told Mr. and Mrs. Adrian at teatime all
about the gentleman who had bought her violets, been so curious about
Ruth’s name, and had seemed so much astonished when she (Gertie) told
him her own.
Mr. Adrian was much amused by Gertie’s description of Egerton’s
admiration of Ruth and his eagerness to know her name.
He looked across the table, and said with a smile:
‘Many a good match made through a charity bazaar, Ruth, my dear.
Perhaps Gertie brought you a suitor.’
It was only a joke, but Ruth’s cheeks went scarlet.
The words had touched a tender chord. She had been thinking of Edward
Marston. Since Gertie had come to her, she never looked at the child
without thinking of him, and how strangely her little _protégée_ had
brought them together again.
And now her father, speaking at random, suggested that Gertie had
brought her a suitor.
The words fitted in so perfectly with the thought that was passing
through her mind at the time, that the crimson blood rushed to her
cheeks and suffused them.
Had Edward Marston seen that blush, he would have known that his
forgiveness was nearer its accomplishment than Ruth had given him any
reason to hope.