THE ADRIANS GO OUT TO TEA.
Mr. Gurth Egerton was a pretty constant visitor at the Adrians’, and he
stood high in favour with both the master and the mistress of the
house. ‘A most agreeable genileman,’ said Mrs. Adrian. ‘A great
traveller, and full of aneedote,’ said Mr. Adrian. Ruth said nothing in
particular. She quite agreed that Mr. Egerton was all her parents
proclaimed him, and she confessed that he had made himself particularly
agreeable to her. But she was not blind, and she soon began to perceive
that Gurth was taking great pains to please her, and that when he spoke
to her he threw a certain tone into his voice which no woman, from the
days of Eve, has been able to misinterpret, unless she did so wilfully.
Ruth was shrewd enough to know that Mr. Gurth Egerton was not so
domesticated as to come over to the house three or four times a week
for the purpose of holding Mrs. Adrians wool and discussing the
relative merits of homoeopathy and allopathy with her, and she was
equally certain that, much as he might have travelled, he was not so
smitten with the savages as to desire constantly to discuss their
habits and customs with her father.
But, whatever Gurth’s motive might be, he had certainly won the
friendship of the Adrians. He had even induced them to accept his
hospitality, and come and take tea with him.
He had so artfully worked up a description of a Patagonia;
dinner-service and a North American Indian war-costume, that he had
forced Mr. Adrian to exclaim, ‘Ah, I should like to see that!’
‘Nothing easier,’ was Gurth’s quick reply. ‘Bring the ladies, and come
over one afternoon to my house, and you can see the whole collection.’
Mrs. Adrian at once gave John a look which informed him he might
accept. Mrs. Adrian had not been blind any more than Ruth, and
recognized in the wealthy bachelor a most eligible _parti_ for her
daughter.
So it was arranged that Mr. and Mrs. Adrian and Ruth and Gertie should
all go over to Gurth’s house one evening and take tea.
They came on the appointed day, and Gurth conducted them over the
house, showing them all the curiosities he had brought from foreign
parts. Mr. Adrian was delighted with the scalps, and the spears, and
the various relics of barbarism, Mrs. Adrian tried the easy-chairs, and
having found a particularly comfortable one, entered into conversation
with Mrs. Turvey, who had been sent for to keep her company while Ruth
and Gertie and Mr. Adrian wandered over the great house. Mrs. Turvey
was very agreeable, and allowed herself to be pumped just as much as
she chose and no more until the exploring party returned.
Then tea was served. It was a good old-fashioned tea, which reflected
the greatest credit on Mrs. Turvey and drew forth the warmest encomiums
of Mrs. Adrian. There were potato cakes and dripping cakes, and all the
substantial and appetizing delicacies which have disappeared from the
table, slain by the dyspeptic and unsociable monster known as ‘late
dinner.’
Of course Ruth was voted to the chair, and very pretty she looked at
the head of Gurth’s table, blushing just a little as she lifted the
bright silver teapot and asked the host if he took sugar and milk.
Gurth was so lost in admiration of the unusual spectacle that he hardly
heard the question, and it had to be repeated by Mrs. Adrian. Gurth
stammered out ‘Both, please,’ and apologized for his inattention.
Mrs. Adrian watched his admiring glance with satisfaction, but Ruth,
keeping her eyes carefully fixed on her teacups, avoided meeting it.
Mrs. Adrian built up a little romance directly. She was quite sure
that, having once seen Ruth at the head of his table, the wealthy
proprietor of this eligible mansion could not fail to desire a
repetition of the scene.
Gurth was surprised himself at the transformation which the gloomy room
had undergone, and he was more than ever persuaded that the future
mistress of Mrs. Turvey’s domain must be the young lady now presiding
at his tea-table.
Gertie was very quiet. Child as she was, she recognized the position of
dependence in which she was placed, and though the Adrians treated her
with the greatest kindness, she could not forget that she was dependent
on their charity for all the happiness and comfort she now enjoyed.
Gurth did not feel quite comfortable, once or twice as Gertie moved
about the place, asking now and then a childish question about
something that attracted her attention. He had a vague feeling that it
was a daring thing to have let her come; he had a strange, undefined
sense of uneasiness, as they went from room to room, that the child
might suddenly happen upon a discovery—upon some trifle which would
establish the link he had been all these years endeavouring to hide.
But gradually he got over the feeling, and grew more at his ease. He
consoled himself by thinking that when he had won and married Ruth he
would let her always have Gertie with her, and then the child would be
really enjoying her father’s property, just as much as though it had
come to her in the first instance.
It was an odd kind of morality; but Gurth Egerton’s ideas of right and
wrong had always been of a peculiar sort.
While the tea-party was being held above, Mrs. Turvey had a small
entertainment of her own going on in the room below. Now that Mr.
Egerton remained permanently at home another servant had been engaged,
and she waited on the company, so that Mrs. Turvey only had to see that
the things went up nice and hot and generally to superintend.
This gave her time to attend to her own guest, who was no other than
Mr. Jabez. The good lady knew that he had a weakness for her hot cakes,
and she had taken this opportunity of inviting him to tea. By making an
extra quantity, both Jabez and the ladies and gentlemen upstairs could
be baked for in the same oven.
Jabez required a good deal of keeping up to the mark. He had never
plucked up courage to defy his beloved Susan to do her worst; but the
wooing had not advanced. He still kept up an outward appearance of
devotion, but he required considerable temptation, in the shape of
substantial teas, to lure him iuto Susan’s little parlour after he left
business.
He was always making excuses. Now he was kept late at the office; now
he was obliged to go straight home because Georgina was ill. The trial
of his lodger for forgery was for a long time a plea for the fact of
his visits being like those of the oft-quoted angels—few and far
between. Every now and then, however, in the interests of diplomacy, he
felt compelled to put a good face on the matter and ‘come up smiling’
in response to Susan’s pressing invitations. The letters were still in
her possession; his poems were still held _in terrorem_ over him.
On the occasion of the Adrians’ visit he had consented to take tea in
Mrs. Turvey’s little parlour and try her famous hot cakes.
Love had not injured his appetite, and he was far more assiduous in his
attention to the cakes than he was in his attentions to the lady whose
light hand had turned them out so successfully.
‘Jabez,’ said Mrs. Turvey, ‘I don’t think it will be long before I
leave here.’
‘Leave here—why?’ exclaimed Jabez.
‘Well, there’s a young lady upstairs pouring out the master’s tea.’
‘So you told me before,’ said Jahez, taking a bite.
‘Where shall I go when I leave here, Jabez?’
Jahez swallowed a mouthful hurriedly.
‘I’m sure I don’t know, Susan.’
‘Then you ought to, that’s all I’ve got to say. How much longer do you
think I’m going to stand your indifference? I tell you what it is,
Jahez, I shall give you till I get notice to leave here, and I shan’t
give you a moment longer.’
Jahez, whose eyes had been cast down, looked up hurriedly.
‘That’s a bargain!’ he said. ‘I’ll agree to it. Let’s draw it up in
writing. I agree to marry you directly you get notice to leave.’
Mrs. Turvey tossed her head.
‘Dror it up in writing? Oh dear no, Mr. Jabez. It’s droved up in quite
enough writing already for me. I suppose you fancy as there’s nothing
in it upstairs. Perhaps you’ve been a-pryin’ into the master’s private
affairs, and know something. Dror it up, indeed! Not with them there
poems o’ yours in my workbox upstairs. You must think me a cake!’
Whether Mr. Jabez did think his Susan a cake, I can’t say, but he
certainly seized one and munched it viciously.
The little tiff, however, soon blew over. Jabez had not studied the art
of dissembling in vain. So long as he could drive off the evil day
until the letters, which were the only legal proofs of ‘promise,’ came
into his possession, or until something turned up to give him a
loophole of escape, he was satisfied.
He made it up, shone on Mrs. Turvey as brightly as he could, and
presently, having finished the cakes and emptied the teapot, took his
departure.
While this scene was transacting itself below, the little tea-party
upstairs was progressing under far more favourable circumstances.
Gurth, absorbed in his desire to make himself agreeable to the Adrians,
succeeded in making them spend a really pleasant evening. Mr. Adrian
was so delighted with his conversation, and Mrs. Adrian felt so
comfortable in his easy-chair, that both were loth to leave, and had to
be reminded twice by Ruth of the lateness of the hour before they
prepared to go.
A few days after the tea-party at Egerton’s house, Mr. John Adrian sat
alone in his dining-room.
The latest book of travels lay on the table before him, but he took no
notice of it. He was evidently lost in thought.
A few minutes before a visitor had departed—a visitor who had requested
a private interview, and, having obtained it had told Mr. Adrian
something which had completely put the Patagonians’ noses out of joint
and driven the Central Africans from the field.
The visitor was no other than Mr. Gurth Egerton, who, in a few plain
words, had requested Mr. Adrian’s permission to pay his addresses to
his daughter.
Mr. Adrian had listened to his visitor politely, and had gone so far as
to confess that such a match would be by no means disagreeable to
himself, but with regard to his daughter’s feelings he was not in a
position to speak.
‘My dear sir,’ answered Gurth gaily, ‘if I have your consent, that is
all I ask at present. I by no means wish you to advocate my cause with
the young lady, or to say anything to her about this interview. I
merely wish to know, before I urge my suit with her, that I have your
free consent to do so. I don’t want to come here sailing under false
colours.’
Mr. Adrian was charmed with his visitor’s frankness, and let him go
away assured that, though he would in no way attempt to influence Ruth
in her choice of a husband, he should only be too glad if it fell upon
so prosperous and agreeable a gentleman as Gurth Egerton.
For some little time after Gurth’s departure, Mr. Adrian sat wrapt in
thought. It would be a splendid match for Ruth, and he felt it was time
she was settled in life. Mrs. Adrian, he knew, would offer no
opposition—in fact, over and over again she had urged him to do all in
his power to foster such a match. There was nothing in the way of its
accomplishment but Rath herself.
I wonder,’ said Mr. Adrian, ‘if she has quite got over that old
business with Ned Marston! Sometimes I fancy there is a soft spot in
her heart for him still.’
Could Mr. Adrian have seen Ruth, as she sat in in her own room that
afternoon, he would have had grave doubts as to the success of Gurth
Egerton’s wooing.
Ruth was amusing herself for a moment or two at her writing-desk, and
scribbling, as young ladies will sometimes when their thoughts are
wandering, on a piece of blotting-paper.
She was writing her name over and over again:
‘Ruth Adrian
‘Ruth Adrian.’
She scribbled it half-a-dozen times, and then her pen, perhaps obedient
to her thought, paused at the ‘Ruth’ and wrote a fresh name after it.
Ruth blushed a vivid scarlet when she saw what she had done. There, on
the blotting-paper in bold relief she had written, in place of her
usual signature:
‘Ruth Marston.’