A REVELATION.
"I think--" said Miss Boldero one day about a fortnight after this--"it
appears to me that Leonore might now be permitted to see the
rector?"--and she looked round to take the opinion of her sisters. Their
father was not present.
Perhaps the speaker had awaited such an opportunity, possibly what
appeared to be a very simple suggestion cost her an effort,--at any
rate, something of constraint in her air and accents arrested the
attention of the person most concerned, and Leo, wondering what so
formal a preamble portended, was so taken aback by the climax that she
did what she alone of the Bolderos ever did, she giggled.
"I can't help it, Sue; I really can't. Oh, dear--oh, dear!"
Permitted to see the rector? Had she not been almost daily seeing--and
dodging--the worthy Custance for weeks past? It had seemed to her that
she could not set foot outside the Abbey domain without catching a
glimpse of his long, thin figure somewhere or other on the road
outside,--and she had actually taken to spying out the land through a
chink of the park palings in order to let the figure, if there, vanish,
before venturing forth. Again she quavered apologetically, "Oh,
dear--oh, dear!"
But naturally no one joined in the mirth; Maud looked contemptuous,
Sybil indifferent--while a more than ordinary indignation suffused the
whole countenance of their half-sister. "Really, Leo!" Sue drew herself
up to her full height, and could enunciate no more.
"I mean no harm," protested Leo, stoutly. "You needn't look at me like
that, all of you,"--for now she too was vexed and bit her lip. "Why
mayn't I laugh when a thing is funny? And it is funny, Sue's saying
that."
"Indeed? We don't happen to see it so." Maud was seldom in sympathy with
jesting, and it must be owned that to a person with no sense of humour
Leo's childishness was at times incomprehensible. Leo, however, had
learned not to heed this.
"Well, I'll tell you," cried she, recovering. "Then you'll understand.
Poor dear Euty, with his long back and hanging head--what? Oh, Sue, he
_has_. He has the very longest back and thinnest neck--and his head
regularly wiggle-waggles over his shoulder,--it will drop off some fine
day,--well, I won't then, I'll to the point, as the books say. If Sue
will only look a little, little bit relenting?"
"You are wounding Sue in her tenderest point," said Sybil, at length
aroused to take part in the conversation. "Don't you know that, by now?
Sue is a pillar of the church----"
"It is absurd to make game of Mr. Custance, at any rate," interposed
Maud authoritatively. "He is a very good parish clergyman, and much more
of a _gentleman_ than any of those you were accustomed to at Deeside,"
and she threw an immeasurable contempt into her tone. "I never saw one
with either decent manners or appearance at your table."
"That's a nasty one," muttered Sybil. Then aloud: "Now we've all had our
whack at each other, and Leo has next innings; what is it you want to
say, Leo? Never mind Maud; you tell Sue and me your little joke, and let
us pronounce upon it."
"No, I think we have had enough;" Sue rose from her seat in offended
dignity. "Leo has got to learn that a friend's name should not be
bandied about, a mark for insults----"
"But I wasn't--but I didn't;" the momentary mortification Leo had
undergone was forgotten in an instant, and all haste and incoherence
she sprang after her sister's retreating figure, and caught it. "Sue,
dear Sue, you know I never thought of such a thing. Insults? Oh, Sue!"
"They sounded like insults, Leo."
"Then they had no business to. I never would insult anybody, least of
all a nice good creature like Euty--there now, you are vexed again. But
do let me just say why I laughed about being 'permitted' to see him. It
is because he regularly haunts my steps when I'm alone. He does, indeed
he does, the dear good man. No doubt he has his reasons, but when you
spoke with bated breath----"
"I don't know what you can possibly mean, Leo."
"Oh, yes, you do. You think it a blessed privilege----"
"It _is_ a privilege."
"Not to me. I am hard put to it sometimes to scuttle out of his way."
"To scuttle out of his way!"--for sheer amazement Sue paused to listen.
"It's true, it's perfectly true." Leo nodded at her with mischievous
pertinacity. "I am forever running across old Euty--Mr. Custance,
then,--because, of course, he does tramp round his parish like a gallant
old soul, and I'm sure I honour him for it,--but I have nowhere else to
go either. It has been so awfully wet of late, the woods are sopping,
so I must take to the roads, and on the roads there is Euty--Mr.
Custance. And Euty--Mr. Custance--hankers after me; and you know you
said I wasn't to hanker after him, not until you gave me leave----"
"I never said such a word."
"You said I was to have no dealings with anybody--except Val; and Val
doesn't count. But of course Euty doesn't know that, and he thinks I'm a
poor little soul, and might be glad to pass the time of day with
anybody. Whereas I--I like the dear good man very well in church; but
outside it, I don't pine and crave for his society. I can exist without
it. You needn't stretch a point to grant it me----"
"Is that child going on forever?" struck in Maud, impatiently. "Why do
you let her pour out this flood of nonsense, Sue? She simply wants to
hear her own tongue, and give no one else a chance."
Apparently, however, Sue thought otherwise. Disregarding the
interruption, she maintained a serious and puzzled air.
"Am I to understand that you suppose yourself an object of interest to
Mr. Custance, Leo?"
"If not, why does he hunt me about the roads? Why does he come galloping
after me----"
"Leo!"
"He does--he did yesterday. I was on ahead near Betty Farmiloe's
cottage, and out he popped and saw me. I walked on as fast as ever I
could, but his long legs took him over the ground like a racer, and he
would have caught me up as sure as fate----"
"You misinterpret a very ordinary civility,----" but the speaker was not
allowed to proceed.
"For goodness sake let her 'misinterpret' then," cried Sybil, diverted
by the recital, "go on, Leo. Did he catch you, or did he not?"
"A cow came along, so I pretended it was a bull, and dashed into a
field. Luckily there was a gate handy."
"'Pretended it was a bull'? How?" rejoined Sybil, still enjoying
herself. "You really are a joke, Leo."
"I threw up my arms madly--like this. Then I made furious passes with my
umbrella at the cow supposed to be bull. Finally I leaped at the gate
and clambered over, unable to see in my desperation that it would have
opened if I had only drawn back the bolt. Tableau. The baffled Euty
sadly pursues his way, while the trembling and agitated Leo flies over
the fields home."
"And never says a word about it?"--from Sybil.
"Not I. Catch me. Sue would have been cross, as she is now," with a
roguish glance; "she would have thought I wanted to rob her of her
beloved rector--oh, we know how she adores her Euty----"
"_What?_" It was a new voice that spoke. "What?" repeated General
Boldero, stepping forward into their midst. "Do my ears deceive me?
Leonore," he paused and gasped. "Wretched child!"--but pomposity
prevailed. "May I inquire in all politeness what is the meaning of that
most extraordinary, most preposterous accusation? You are silent. You
may well be. Your most disgraceful language--again I demand what is the
meaning of it?"
He seized her arm, as though she were not already nailed to the spot.
"The meaning, girl--the meaning?"
"The--the meaning?"
"I repeat, the meaning. I am coming along the passage, and I hear you
shouting at the pitch of your voice----"
"At the pitch of my voice?" echoed Leo, mechanically. Her eye was not
upon her father, and she only half heard his thunderous charge,--it was
something else which petrified her senses and made her head swim.
Sue? What had come to Sue?
White as death Sue had fallen into a chair, every feature distorted by
such a mute agony of terror that--oh, there was no mistaking it, no
concealing it, and yet,--Leo looked round.
She was between her unfortunate sister and the rest of the party, Sue
having cowered down behind her where she stood,--while Maud and Sybil,
to avoid being implicated, had precipitately retreated to a
window-recess, the former with a shrug of her shoulders, the latter with
the intention of slipping off as soon as might be.
But Sue? Was it possible?--yet nothing else was possible. Nothing else
could account for a collapse so sudden and complete. Oh, poor Sue--poor,
prim, stately Sue. At another moment,--but Leo must not stop to think
what she would have done at another moment; her one aim now must be to
shield the defenceless creature, exposed through her. So far, the parent
who made poor Sue's life a burden, and yet whom she believed in, loved,
and served to the best of her humble power, had concentrated his
attention on herself as chief delinquent, but at any moment his
infuriated eyes might turn to that shrinking, trembling form, and then?
With the air of a combatant delighted to welcome an unexpected ally, "I
_am_ so glad you came in, father," said she.
Glad? The general stepped back as though she had hit him. Glad?
"They are all so down upon me about that stupid old parson of ours,"
continued Leonore, glibly. "They won't listen to anything I say against
him, but I know _you_ will believe me. He really does follow me about
the roads, you know; and of course any one might guess what for. He's a
money-grabber, that's what he is. Not a 'money-grubber'! I know that
kind; we had it in plenty at Deeside, but a 'grabber,' and a 'grabber'
of the worst type. He thinks of nothing else but getting money out of
you for his poor people. Well, I daresay they _are_ poor, but then so am
I, and as I can't tell him so--for you know you forbade me yourself--all
I can do is to flee. Yet they laugh me to scorn when I say I flee, and
he pursues."
She paused for breath, and moved a little more in front of Sue.
"Humph!" said the general, twirling his moustache. He was arrested, but
by no means appeased. She set to work again.
"I know you would not wish me to be mulcted, father, and it _is_ so
difficult to say 'no' when a good sort like Mr. Custance----"
"You didn't call him that just now," burst forth the general.
"Oh, I always call him 'Euty' to myself," said Leo, serenely. "Girls do,
you know. We always give people nicknames,--and though he is a parson,
there's no harm in it, is there? Sue thinks it dreadful, and that there
ought to be a sort of halo round the clerical head; and that's why I was
teasing her just now----"
"You used most ridiculous, I may say most offensive terms;" he bristled
up again.
"Just to have a little rise out of Sue. For Sue was so very positive
that the saintly Euty never chased me on the road, supposing me to be
rich and generous and likely to give him oceans of money for his poor
people, that I had to go at her back. But _you_ know it's true, don't
you, father?"
"True enough." He rose to the fly at once. "Why, aye, if this is the
case, it certainly--hum, ha--certainly it alters the case. You are a
tolerably sharp little piece of goods, Leo, and have discovered what
your numskulls of sisters never could. That man would have us all in the
workhouse, if he had his way. Directly he crosses this threshold out
comes a subscription list, or note-book, or something. It's sheer
robbery, that's what it is. Often and often I have to skulk down a back
lane, or go into a door I never meant to enter, because I see him
coming. I know if once he buttonholes me, I'm done for."
"And as I simply can't be 'done for' in that way, I flee for my life.
Now do say a good word for me, father,"--and, to the general's
unspeakable amazement, the next moment a little friendly figure was
nestling against him, holding on to his coat, and looking up into his
face.
The sensation this gave General Boldero was more than novel, it was
extraordinary. He was a tolerably old man, he had been twice married,
and had always lived surrounded by the gentler sex, but it is safe to
say he had never been nestled against in his life. He looked down, he
looked up, and then he looked down again.
"Deuced pretty little rogue!" he muttered.
"They think Mr. Custance doesn't know one of us from another, and that
it is the most presumptuous cheek on my part to imagine he has ever
given me a thought," proceeded Leonore, still intent upon her task;
"they think he is far, far above all sublunary affairs----"
"Rubbish. He is no more above them than I am. I don't say Custance isn't
well enough, and I have a--a sort of regard for him. But you have the
sense to see what your sisters have not----"
"That one simply can't be mulcted at every turn." She had heard
"mulcted" on his own lips on more than one occasion; it should serve as
a weapon to shield Sue now. Sue, still mute and motionless, cringed
behind, but Leo had an intuition that she breathed relief.
"That's it; that's it exactly," cried the general, delighted, and again
he appended a mental comment: "Deuced clever little rat!" "Well, I'm
glad to find there is some explanation of what really sounded a most
outrageous statement;" he turned to depart, now in excellent humour. "I
must say, however, that you would do well to see that the dining-room
door is shut when next you are amusing yourself with that kind of
tomfoolery. Any of the servants coming along had only to step inside and
listen behind the screen, and there would have been a fine tittle-tattle
among them--aye, and it wouldn't have stopped there. It would have been
all through the village that Miss Boldero----"
"Oh, dear, how funny!" laughed Leo. She had felt Sue's fingers clutch
her dress behind. She stepped with her father's step, as he moved to
pass, and made a face at him.
"There--there--you absurd monkey!" but the monkey was pushed aside with
a gentle hand, and marching off with all the honours of the field in his
own esteem, the general never once looked at Sue.