A MASTER MIND
Hugh had come back. When he had gone away he had taken with him one
small portmanteau that went easily into the luggage rack above his head.
But on the return journey he had quite a little sum to pay for excess
luggage.
For instance no railway carries a motor bicycle for the consideration
tendered to it for a passenger ticket. And a motor bicycle was amongst
the things turned out on the Burunda platform when Hugh came back, and,
to the astonishment of Kate who had gone to meet him, claimed by him.
"My dear fellow," she exclaimed when assured it was unmistakably his,
"how glad I am! I knew you would come to it sooner or later. Oh, what
rides we will have together!" Her face beamed.
"Preserve us!" said Hugh; "Melbourne is not responsible for developing
maniacal symptoms in me, I assure you. It's for you, of course."
"You mad boy," said Kate, "haven't I already the best you could buy?"
"But it turns your little face red," said Hugh, "and makes your little
heart beat too fast on these hills. This one won't."
And then it was that Kate discovered the motor attachment of the new
machine and was divided between ecstasy and economic qualms.
Hugh swiftly laid the latter. The speculation had gone well--better than
his best expectations; he had to break out somewhere, he said.
The breaking out included a tricycle for Muffie, who was ever in hot
water with Max for stealing rides on "Trike" just when that gentleman
needed the steed himself. A splendid set of croquet was for Pauline, who
delighted in the game and had been overwhelmed with sorrow because one
night, when mallets and balls "happened" to be left out on the lawn all
night, a vagrant cow with a depraved appetite came in and, as Paul said
mournfully, "went and chewed corners all over the balls."
For Lynn, who had been heard bewailing the fact that all the books she
loved had been left in the other house, was a large parcel containing
six of the most delightful fairy-books in the world.
And, most exciting of all, there were four volumes, thin certainly, but
most gaily bound and gilt-edged and padded up as well as possible with
thick paper and pictures--the books they had all written that day in the
summer-house.
There they lay, three bound in scarlet and one in green, _The Horty
Stepmother_, by Pauline Lomax; _The Fairy who Had_, by Lynn Lomax;
_There was a Dog_, by Muffie Lomax; and _The Mother who said No_, by Max
Lomax. Kate was delighted with them and said she would give much to be
at the elbow of the Judge and Mrs. Lomax in New Zealand when these
choice volumes from their gifted offspring reached them.
For Miss Bibby too there was an offering.
"There aren't many modern women left who can fitly wear these things,"
Hugh said when he showed it to Kate, "but it struck me that it would
become a certain old-world air that lingers about Agnes Bibby."
"Ho, ho," said Kate to herself, and stole a glance at him; but she
allowed warmly that the thing was very pretty.
It was a chatelaine made of finely-fretted silver. The customary
thimble, scissors and other useful and feminine trifles dangled there,
but there was also added a delicately-chased case that might have been
expected to hold a bodkin, but contained indeed a very up-to-date
fountain-pen, gold-mounted.
"A woman without a waistcoat pocket for her fountain-pen has always
seemed such a pathetic object to me," Hugh said. "When you were a
business woman, K, it often moved me to internal tears to notice the
disadvantage you were at in this respect."
Kate acknowledged the disadvantage.
"Though I did stick to a skirt pocket long after the dressmakers had
declared them anathema," she said, "but there was always the danger of
sitting on your pen or having it leak a wide black mark in the back
width of your best frock. Even the sacred repository behind the ear that
will lodge a penny pen refuses to accommodate a stout and slippery
fountain one. But with that arrangement she will be able to make notes
all day."
Hugh hastened to display a miniature note-book, also made to hang
suspended from the waist.
"She will be armed at all points, you see," he said, "and the minute she
sees men like columns walking, as some one says, she can jot them
down."
"But what are all the other things?" asked Kate, pointing to several
still unaccounted-for parcels and hampers standing about the verandah
just where the driver had set them down.
"Oh, by George, yes," said Hugh. "You must look after those things, K,
or they won't keep. It's to-morrow's dinner."
"To-morrow's fiddlestick!" said Kate unbelievingly.
"'Tis, I assure you," said Hugh; "I'm giving a grand picnic to-morrow at
the Falls to celebrate my safe return. Thought of it in bed last night,
telephoned the X.Y.Z. Company to pack a bit of lunch that would keep a
day and to meet the train with it, and there you are," he waved his hand
at the hampers.
"A bit of lunch!" said Kate sarcastically. "Are you sure there is enough
there to take the edge off our appetites?"
"Don't get anxious," said Hugh, "there's a little more to follow in the
morning--little things that don't keep well, you know. We can easily
pick them up at the station as we pass."
"Little things like----?" said Kate.
"Oh, mustard," said Hugh--"I remembered how you dislike stale mustard.
And butter--you can't leave butter shut up, you know--and other little
things."
"Half a dozen of everything, I suppose," Kate said, attacking the
hampers. "H'm, champagne."
"Well, you've got to drink the health of those shares."
"Poultry."
"It will keep, won't it? They assured me it was only cooked at 2 o'clock
to-day."
"Oh, it will _keep_."
"Peaches--pineapples--French confectionery."
"Well, my dear girl, you will all want a square feed when you get to the
bottom of those Falls."
"And who are we all, pray?" inquired Kate.
"Well," said Hugh, "there are the ducky little girls, that's two. I sent
them a wire each this morning and had their acceptances before the
X.Y.Z. got to work."
"That was smart," said Kate.
"Yes, I rather pride myself on my executive abilities when I've once got
going," said Hugh. "Next I wired Edith and told her to stay away and
Gowan, too. Told her you'd chaperone. I don't want the gloomy brewer's
soul going by me like a stork at my own picnic. Told her to send along
the kids though--all five of them."
"That's seven," said Kate, "and ourselves, nine,--anyone else? I hope
so, for there's enough here for nineteen, and I hate waste."
"Oh, I sent wires over the road, of course."
"Half a dozen wires?" said Kate.
"Oh, no," said Hugh innocently, "there are only five of them."
"Five separate wires,--Hugh Kinross, you want a keeper!"
"Well," said Hugh, "I _was_ only going to send one to Miss Bibby, but
then it struck me how pleased a kid would be to get a telegram. I know I
never did or I'd have burst with pride in my promising youth."
"Twelve wires at--at? How many words, sir?"
"Well," said Hugh, "they wouldn't have cost so much only I took a fancy
to drop into poetry with them. And in spite of precedents the operator
declined to do it as a friend."
"Just a minute," said Kate, "half of those wires are doomed to be
wasted. Your executive ability is a thing to marvel at, I grant you, but
you overlooked the little fact that Lomax-_cum_-Whooping-Cough may not
foregather round a tablecloth with Gowan-_plus_-Perfect-Health."
Hugh certainly looked nonplussed at this.
"It would be a moral impossibility for one of the parties unaided by the
other to eat all this," pursued Kate.
"My good woman," said Hugh, "go and put the perishables in the
ice-chest. My master mind will soon deal with the difficulty."
So Kate moved backwards and forwards between the kitchen and the
verandah and Hugh tilted his chair and took out a cigar to help meet the
situation.
"Well?" said Kate when only a heap of fine ash remained.
"Quite well," said Hugh. "Both parties shall attend and not the ghost of
a whoop shall be exchanged. I ordered two large sociables,--the drivers
will have instructions not to approach nearer than thirty feet within
each other. A whoop microbe would hardly travel thirty feet."
"Well," said Kate, "as far as that is concerned I don't see that Edith
need have any anxiety. She might pass a wagonette with scarlet fever
convalescents herself any day. But what about the actual picnic? Muffie
defines this word as eating nice things down a gully. Could we
comfortably pass sandwiches to each other there at a distance of thirty
feet?"
"Knowing what a fidget Edith is I propose to make the distance several
hundred feet," said Hugh. "See here, it is plain I've got to have two
picnics now to-morrow. At the head of the Falls I disembark my first
contingent,--say the 'Greenways' one. I give them instructions to go
straight down to the bottom of the second Fall,--they are all good
climbers. When they've got a good start,--say twenty minutes, I call up
the second contingent, the little pets and Edith's youngsters and start
them down. You will go with these as chaperone and camp at the foot of
the first Fall. We must explain to Miss Bibby that your wing extends
over both Falls and that she as well as the little pets are brooded
beneath it. I've already bespoken two caddies from the links to carry
the hampers, and they will have plenty of exercise going up and down the
steps. As host I shall endeavour to divide myself equally between my two
divisions of guests. And probably the exercise between the two tables
will rid me of any superfluous flesh I may have about me."
"Well," laughed Kate, "it is one way out of the difficulty. I certainly
should not have thought of anything myself but of postponing one party
until another day."
"No," said Hugh complacently, "it takes the strategy of a general or a
genius to fix up little things like this."
Four breathless figures came dashing over the road and through the
"Tenby" gate round to the side verandah.
"Oh, oh," said Lynn imploringly, "you have finished your tea, haven't
you? Miss Bibby wouldn't let us 'sturb you before."
"We counted up to a thousand to give you time," said Pauline, "and _we_
could eat enough tea in a hundred and fifty--unless there were drop
cakes."
"We've got to go to bed in ten minutes," said Muffie tragically.
"We're coming," shouted Max, and he flourished the rhymed blue telegram
that he had carried about all day.
"Did you get our answers?" cried Lynn.
"We paid for them ourselves," said Pauline. "Miss Bibby just wanted to
send one answer and say 'All accept with pleasure'! But we just
_wouldn't_, and we all went to the post and we told the woman just what
to put, and it would have been a lot better only we didn't have much
time to think, only while we walked up the hill, and Lynn did the most,
'cause she can always think of the rhymingest words, and we'd have made
them much longer only we could only afford ninepence each, and we had to
lend Max threepence, 'cause he'd only got sixpence left."
She stopped for sheer lack of breath.
"Ninepence each!" cried Kate, "and you once thought of writing some
articles on teaching Thrift to young Australia, Hugh!"
"But that was before I was really acquainted with young Australia," said
Hugh.
"Did you like them?" asked Lynn anxiously, "I was 'fraid you wouldn't
like grin, but nothing else would rhyme."
"Like them!" said Hugh, "I shall keep them in my desk among my
Correspondence from Celebrated Persons. As a special and particular
favour I will allow Kate to see them," and he drew out the budget of
telegraph forms.
"Your friend Pauline
Will be glad to be seen,"
was the uniquely _apropos_ answer to his invitation to the eldest
daughter of the Judge.
"Max will come quick
To your nice picnic"
was effort number two. There had been a variant reading of this--
"Max a plate will lick
At your nice picnic,"
and the matter had been fought out before entering the post office, Lynn
liking the first and Pauline and Max himself inclining to the second.
But Miss Bibby being made umpire declared against the second as not very
"nice." So Hugh knew only the fact that Max would come quick.
"Please take enough
To the picnic. From Muff"
would assuredly not have been allowed by Miss Bibby one little month
since, to be sent as an acceptance to the invitation of a person nearly
eight times her own age. The fact that it was handed across the
counter--and with a smile, too--was a sign that the foundations of a
liberal education may be successfully laid even at thirty-six.
"Your loving friend Lynn
With much joy doth grin,"
in no way satisfied Lynn's ideas either of composition or beauty, but
she had been so occupied helping with the couplets of the others that
she was forced to compose hers standing on the door step of the post
office. The word "grin" vexed her; yet "thin" would not allow itself to
be worked in and no other "ryum" that would make sense would suggest
itself, so she quite mournfully sent on the information that with joy
she did grin.
Pauline pounced on the formal telegram from Miss Bibby--"Will bring my
charges. Many thanks for thinking of them."
"We did a _much_ better one for her," she said, "only she wouldn't send
it. I liked it best of all."
"What was it?" asked Hugh, and learnt that the "rejected address" was--
"Won't it be nibby?
Yours truly, Miss Bibby."
But at this point Miss Bibby's slender figure in its pale grey muslin
was seen crossing the road, so the presents were hastily distributed,
and four pairs of young eyes tried to outrival in brightness the just
peeping stars of the early evening.
Miss Bibby shook hands with Kate, then with Hugh, on whom she bent a
curious glance: she had half expected to see him turn aside and dive
through the doorway at the sight of herself, yet there he stood as calm
and unashamed as possible.
He took her hand and held it in a pleasant grasp. He looked down at her
in the half-fatherly, bantering fashion he adopted to the "ducky little
girls."
"Well," he said, "and how is the poor little pen?"
Miss Bibby shot one keen glance at him.
He decided that she did not like the slighting reference to that pen and
strove to rectify his mistake. "You know, however good an instrument it
is, I don't like to see it in a woman's hand," he went on, "it's an
edged weapon and cuts into even the hard hand that holds it; your little
hand would bleed if you grasped it perpetually. I better like to think
of it smoothing these little heads."
He looked--he knew not why himself--half sadly at the eager children.
"Isn't he an anachronism?" laughed Kate, "I often tell him the reason he
has not married is he has never been able to find any one sufficiently
Early Victorian for him. Imagine preaching a doctrine of 'Thou shalt not
write' to women to-day! Every woman her own authoress is the accepted
thing."
"Ah well," said Hugh, "I know a better thing." But though Kate pressed
him he might not tell to these two spinsters that "Every woman a
mother" was in his thoughts.
"I will say good-night," said Miss Bibby, "come children--at once, if
you please." She shook hands with Kate and this time only bowed to Hugh.
"Did you give her her present?" asked Kate when the gate closed and the
grey figure and the little running ones were merged in the grey of the
tender dusk.
"No," said Hugh, "I'll have to find a better chance; I evidently put my
foot in it, didn't I?" He pondered over the keen eye-glance that had met
his once or twice.
"I tell you what it is, Kate," he said, when, his cigar finished, they
went into the house, "that girl will never really forgive me for the
interview, however much she may think she does."