Sweethearts at Home

XXII

AN EVENING CALL

Now of course it is true that the people of Edam gossip about Young Mrs. Winter. But, to make things quite equal all round, Young Mrs. Winter can give any one of them points at their own game! And she has her own way of doing it too. She is never nasty about it, never spiteful. She looks far too plump for that. She is rather like those people in the Bible who make broad their phylacteries, and thank God in their prayers that they are not as other men are. It says "men" in the text (I looked it up), but I think it must have been women who were really meant. For, about Edam at least, it is mostly they who give thanks that they are not as other women are!

Well, at any rate, Young Mrs. Winter was that kind of gossip – oh, far too good-natured ever to say an ill word about any one! But, on the other hand, always "so very sorry" for the people she did not like that she left everybody with the impression that she was in possession of the darkest and deadliest secrets concerning them. Only she was so good and so kind that she only sympathized with these naughty people, instead of (as no doubt she could) putting them altogether outside the pale of society. She did this most often at afternoon teas. Then her sighs could be heard all over the room. They quenched conversation. They aroused curiosity, and in five minutes half tea-sipping Edam knew to how much original sin Miss So-and-so had recently added so many new and unedited actual transgressions. But for the unfortunate impression thus unwittingly given of course poor Young Mrs. Winter was by no means responsible. Indeed, she gently sighed as she went away. "It is such a pity!" she said feelingly, as her hostess accompanied her to the door.

Mrs. Winter the Younger dealt at Nipper Donnan's – both on account of the superior quality of the meat, and, still more, because there she encountered a kindred spirit – no, not the Reverend Cosmo Huntly, but Mrs. Nipper Donnan herself. It was not long before Young Mrs. Winter knew all about the abominable devices of Elizabeth Fortinbras, the terrible loss to the legitimate heir, Nipper, brought about by the cunning of a certain Hugh John, the weakness (if no worse) of the elder Donnans – in fact, all, and a great deal more, than Mrs. Nipper knew herself!

One evening, going into the shop during Nipper's absence on his "cattle-buying business" among the farms, Young Mrs. Winter found still younger Mrs. Donnan in a state of great excitement. She had just been wrapping up a parcel, and was aching for a confidant.

No, of course Young Mrs. Winter would never, never betray a secret. Was she not known and noted for that one thing? Had she not suffered grievously and been much spoken against for that very fault, if fault, indeed, it were? Mrs. Nipper might ask all Edam.

There was not, of course, time for that, because Mrs. Nipper was so keen on the track of a confidant.

It had to come out. The dam burst suddenly. There was now no means of holding it back. Meg Linwood's private sense of injustice was increased a thousandfold by the purring sympathy of Young Mrs. Winter.

No, indeed, she would not sit down under it. She was not now a "slavey" to be treated like that. She had had quite enough! And so on and so on. Young Mrs. Winter incautiously suggested an appeal to Mrs. Nipper's husband, and so very nearly cut off the whole book of the revelation in mid-gush.

"Oh, no!" cried Mrs. Nipper, "above all things Nipper must know nothing about it! He would not understand!"

Young Mrs. Winter threw up her hands with a little gesture of despair, as much as to say, "I do not quite see, in that case, what is to be done in the matter!"

Then came the dread secret.

"I have paid them off myself. But oh – it is a great secret! Nipper would never forgive me – he thinks so much of that Hugh John Picton Smith!"

"Tell me all about it," purred Young Mrs. Winter. "You know I never speak again of things which have been told me in confidence!"

And, indeed, there was more of truth in the statement than the lady herself was aware of. For there were but few people in Edam so foolish as to tell Young Mrs. Winter even what their chickens had had for dinner!

"Oh, they shall not mock at me any more," said Mrs. Nipper, half crying with anger, half trembling at her own temerity.

The Meg Linwood of the back kitchen had not got over her former wholesome dread of correction. And in her secret heart she always feared (and perhaps also a little hoped) that one day Nipper, put out of patience by her tricks, would snatch up a stick and give her the same sort of moral lesson by which the late Mr. Linwood had recalled his family to a sense of their duty. "They shall not mock at me – yes, I know they do – because I was once a servant." (How little she knew either Hugh John or Elizabeth, if the accusation were made seriously!) "But I have shown them that they cannot tamper with me!"

"But how – tell me how you did it?" said Young Mrs. Winter, sinking her voice to a whisper.

"I found a letter," said Meg in a solemn whisper, and putting her mouth close to the ear of her listener, "yes, a letter – from that Carter girl in Paris to Hugh John Picton Smith."

"Never!" cried Young Mrs. Winter, clasping her hands together in a kind of ecstasy. Then, fearing she had gone too far, she said, "I should like to see it, but I suppose you sent it back immediately."

"I did nothing of the kind," Meg Linwood giggled. "I would not be so soft, though I have only been a servant – a common slavey, washing pans in the scullery, while my lady, all dressed up fine, sold candy in the front shop, and talked to that Hugh John!"

Thus innocently did poor Meg Linwood lay bare to the experienced eyes of Young Mrs. Winter the secret springs of her jealousy.

"It is a shame," murmured that lady sympathetically but vaguely.

And so, with a little persuasion, Meg Linwood told the whole story of the twin halves of the crooked sixpence as related in the letter found in the sharkskin purse.

Young Mrs. Winter felt that perhaps never had virtue been more its own reward. She was in sole possession of a secret that would assuredly set all Edam by the ears.

Presently she made her excuses to Mrs. Nipper Donnan, all simmering with sympathy till she was round the corner. And then she actually picked up her skirts and ran.

She had so many calls to make, so much to tell, and so little time to do it in. No wonder that Young Mrs. Winter was almost crushed by the weight of her own responsibilities. Suppose that she were to fall sick, or get run over, dying untimely "with all her music in her," as the poet says.

Unfortunately nothing of the kind occurred. The people she called on were at home. Nay, more, they had friends. These friends, as soon as they had heard, jostled each other in the lobbies. Nay, so great was their haste to be gone that they made the rudest snatches at each other's umbrellas!

Thus quickly was the tale of the crooked sixpence spread about in Edam. You see, the Davenant Carters were the greatest people in the parish, all the more so for not living in the town. And as for Hugh John, he also, though less known, was a citizen of no mean city.

I think it must have been about eight o'clock of a summer night – it was after dinner, anyway – when a ring came to the door bell, and Cairns went in the dining-room where Hugh John was rearranging the universe with father while he smoked. I was at the organ looking over some music, and trying over little bits very, very softly. Because at that time it is not allowed to interrupt the talk.

"A young lady on a bicycle to speak to Mr. Hugh John!" said Cairns.

Luckily I had turned a little on the music-stool, so I did not lose a faintest detail of what followed. I saw the single mischievous dimple come and go at the corner of father's cheek, but, as is his silent way, he only flicked the ash off his cigarette with his little finger, and said nothing.

"Will you excuse me for a moment, father?" said Hugh John, always master of himself, and consequently, nine times out of ten, of the other person as well. Father nodded gravely, and Hugh John went out.

I would have given all I possessed – not usually much at most – to have accompanied my brother. But a look from father checked me. As you can see from his books, it is not so very long since he was young himself. Though, of course, he seems fearfully old to us, I know he does not feel that way himself.

So perforce I had to wait patiently, turning over that dreary music till somebody came into the room, and then I was released. I knew it was Elizabeth Fortinbras who was outside, but for all that I did not even go to the door to see.

After what seemed a very long while Hugh John came in. He was looking rather pale.

"Can I go to the Edam Post Office?" he asked. "I shall not be long."

But though he asked politely, he was gone almost before permission could be given.

He told me all about it when he came back. I had been at the window, and had seen Hugh John and Elizabeth Fortinbras ride off together. For any one who saw them there was but one thing to think. They looked so handsome that any other explanation seemed inadmissible. Only we at home knew different.

"Sis," he said, when at last we got out to the gun-room, which father uses occasionally for smoking in, "there never was a girl like Elizabeth Fortinbras!"

At this I whistled softly – a habit for which I am always being checked, and as often forgetting.

"And what about Cissy Carter?" I asked.

He looked at me once with a kind of "If-you-have-any-shame-in-thee, girl, prepare-to-shed-it-now" manner, before which I quailed. Then he told me how Elizabeth had ridden out to tell him of the treachery of Meg Linwood. Together they had made out an urgency telegram, had found the post-master, and had dispatched it to Paris that very night.

It said: "Half silver token lost. If sent you by mischievous persons, please return immediately to its owner, Hugh John Picton Smith."

"And that, I think, covers the case – she will understand!" said Elizabeth Fortinbras.

But low in her own heart, as she rode up the long steep street to New Erin Villa, she added the rider, "That is, if she is not a goose!"

XXIII

HONOR THY DAUGHTER!

But, alas! Cissy Carter was a goose! In the well-meant telegram she saw only a new machination of the enemy – perhaps even of Elizabeth Fortinbras. And the heart in the Boulevard d'Argenson became, for the moment, sadder than ever. Also Madame asked for an explanation in a tone to which the proud little daughter of Colonel Davenant Carter had been quite unaccustomed. She resented Madame Rolly's interference rather more sharply than wisely. Whereupon she was told that her father would be requested to remove her, if, on the morrow, she was not ready with an explanation, in addition to the apology which Madame, perhaps correctly, considered her due.

Now it chanced that Colonel Carter, finding himself with a week-end to spare in London, had crossed the Channel to give himself the treat (and his daughter the surprise) of dropping in upon her unexpectedly. He could not have come more to the purpose so far as that daughter was concerned. Or more malapropos from the point of view of Madame Rolly.

As many people know, the good Colonel, once the devoted slave of Sir Toady Lion, was occasionally exceedingly peppery. And when he arrived with his pockets bulging with good things, only to find "his little girl" in tears – and, indeed, brought hastily down from the room in which she had been locked – his military ardor exploded.

"If, Madame," he is reported to have said, "I am to understand that you cannot keep discipline without having resort to methods more suitable to a boy of eight than to a young lady of eighteen, it is time that I undertook the responsibility myself! Cecilia, go up to your room. I will settle with Madame. And by the time that is done – the – ah – baggage-cart will be at the door – as sure as my name is G-rrrrrumph – G-rrrumph – G-rrrummph!"

And, indeed, the "baggage-cart" (in the shape of a small omnibus) was at the door. Although really, you know, the Colonel's name was not as he himself affirmed.

"And now, Missy," growled the Colonel in his finest Full-Bench-of-Justices manner, "kindly tell me what you have been doing!"

For, very characteristically, the Colonel, though entirely declining to listen to a word of accusation against his daughter from Madame Rolly, reserved to himself the right of distributing an even-handed justice afterwards. His method on such occasions is just the reverse of father's, as we have all learned to our cost. Our father would have listened gravely to all that Madame had to recount of our misdeeds. Then he would have nodded, remarked, "You did perfectly right, Madame! In anything that you may propose, I will support you – so long, that is, as I judge it best that my child shall remain at your school!" For father's first principle in all such matters is, "Support authority – receive or make no complaints – and, above all, work out your own salvation, my young friend!"

And though it sometimes looks a bit hard at the time, as Hugh John says, "It prepares a fellow for taking his own part in the world, as you soon find you have jolly well to do if you mean to get on."

But Cissy knew her father, and promptly set herself to cry as heartbrokenly as she could manage on such short notice. Colonel Davenant Carter gazed at her a moment with a haughty and defiant expression. But as Toady Lion had once said of him, "I teached him to come the High Horsicle wif ME!" So now, as the rickety omnibus jogged and swayed over the Parisian cobbles, Cissy wept ever more bitterly, till the old soldier had to entreat her to stop. They would, so it appeared, soon be at his hotel. Even now they were passing his club, and "that old gossiping beast, Repton Reeves," was at the window. If it got about that he, Colonel Davenant Carter, had been seen driving down the Rue de Rivoli with a damsel drowned in floods of tears – why, by all the bugles of Balaclava, he would never hear the end of it. He might as well resign at the club. All which, as Cissy sobbed out in the French language, was "exceedingly equal" to her! But it was very far indeed from being "égal" to the peppery Colonel. And at last, as the sobs increased in carry and volume, he was reduced to the ignominious expedient of personal bribery.

"Look here, Cissy," he said in tremulous tones, "we absolutely can't go into the courtyard of the Grand Hotel like this! Now, if you will be a good girl, and will stop this instant, I will drive you up the Rue de la Paix, and there I will buy – !"

"What?" said Cissy, looking up with eyes that still brimmed ready for action.

"A gold bracelet!" said her father tentatively, but still quite uncertain of his effect.

"Boohoo!" said Cissy Carter, dropping her face once more between her hands.

"Goodness gracious," cried the Colonel, invoking his favorite divinity, "what can the girl want? A gold watch, then?"

"Real gold this time, then!" said Cissy, who had been "had" once before, and, even with an aching heart, was properly cautious.

"You shall do the choosing yourself!" said her father, thinking that he had conquered. But Cissy knew her opportunity – and the relative whom fate had given her. The tears welled again. Her bosom was shaken by timely sobs.

"Well, what then, Celia – really, this becomes past bearing! Why, we are nearly at the hotel!"

Cissy glanced up quickly. "A gold bracelet with a gold watch, then!" she sighed gently.

And this is the truth, and the whole truth, as to why Colonel Davenant Carter gave his arm to a radiant and beautiful daughter in the courtyard of the Grand Hotel – a daughter, also, who lifted up a prettily-gloved hand (twelve buttons), and at every fourth step looked at the time!

XXIV

CISSY'S MEANNESS

Miss Cecilia Davenant Carter had been at home a good many weeks before she came to see me. Of course Hugh John was now at college, and doubtless that made a difference. But she had never stayed away so long before, and whatever reason Cissy might have to be angry with Master Hugh John, she had not the least right to take it out on ME!

However, she came at last – chiefly, I think, to show me the gold watch on her wrist. This she wanted so badly to do that it must have hurt her dreadfully to stay away as long as she did. So she sat fingering it, but not running to ask me to admire it, as a girl naturally does. Of course I took no notice, though it made me feel mean. We talked about the woods and the autumn tints (schoolgirls always like these two words – they remind them that it is the season for blackberries and jam), till at last I was thoroughly ashamed of myself. So I went over to Cissy, and said, "I think that's the prettiest bracelet I ever saw in all my life!"

And she said, "Do you?" looking up at me funnily. "Do you really?" she repeated the words, looking straight at me.

"Yes, I do indeed!" I answered. And – what do you think? – the next moment she was crying on my shoulder! Of course I understood. Every girl will, without needing to be told. And as for men (and "Old Cats"), it is no use attempting to explain to them. They never could know just how we two felt.

But Cissy had really nothing in the least "catty" about her. "Quite the reverse, I assure you!" as the East Country folk say. She even took it off and let me try it on without ever warning me to be careful with it. And that, you know, is a good deal for a girl who is "not friends" with your own brother, and has only had a new "real-gold" watch-bracelet for three or four weeks.

But then, Cissy could never be calm and restful like Elizabeth Fortinbras. Cissy did everything in a rush, and so, I suppose, got somehow closer to the heart of our impassive Hugh John just on that account. Elizabeth Fortinbras was too like my brother to touch him "where he lived," as Sir Toady would say.

Well, after a while Cissy stopped crying, and took my handkerchief without a word and quite as a matter of course (which showed as clearly as anything how things stood between us).

Then she said, "Priss, do you know, I did an awfully mean thing, and I want you to help me to make it all right again!"

In a book, of course (a proper book, I mean), I ought to have asked Ciss all sorts of questions, and said that in everything which did not affect the honor of the house of Picton Smith I was at her service. And so on.

But of course ordinary girls don't talk like that now-a-days. If you have what our sweet Maid calls a "snarl" against anybody – why, mostly every one plays hockey now, and it is the simplest thing in the world to "take a drive at her shins, and say how sorry you are afterwards"! So at least (the Maid informs me) some girls, who shall be nameless, have been known to do at her school.

I waited for Cissy to tell me of the dreadfully mean thing she had done. But of course I assured her first that, whatever it was – yes, whatever– I should do just what she wanted done to help her. For I knew she would do the same for me.

Then she told me that in her first anger about the telegram – for she had been far more angry about that than about the sending back the other half of the crooked sixpence – a thing which really mattered a thousand times more (but of course that was exactly like a girl!) – she had put the telegram, and both parts of the crooked sixpence, and all of Hugh John's letters she could find – chiefly the short and simple annals of a Rugby "forward" – in a lozenge-box – and (here Cissy dropped her voice) sent them all, registered, to Elizabeth Fortinbras!

XXV

"NOT EVEN HUGH JOHN!"

"To Elizabeth – Elizabeth Fortinbras!" I cried. Here was a new difficulty. If only people would not do things in a hurry, as Hugh John says, they would mostly end by not doing them at all!

"What sort of a girl is this Elizabeth Fortinbras?" Cissy Carter asked. "She is only a shop-girl after all, isn't she?"

I set Cissy right on this head. There were shop-girls and shop-girls. And this one not only came of a respectable ancestry, but had been well educated, was the heiress of Erin Villa, and would succeed to one of the best businesses in Edam!

"Is she pretty?"

Oh, of course I had foreseen the question. It was quite inevitable, and there was but one thing to say —

"Come to the shop and see for yourself!"

But Cissy hung back. You see, she had done a perfectly mad thing, and yet was not quite ready to make it up with the person concerned – especially when Cissy was Colonel Davenant Carter's only daughter just home from Paris, and when, in spite of my explanations, Elizabeth was little more to her than a "girl behind a counter"!

You may be sure that I put her duty before her – yes, plainly and with point. But Cissy had in her all the pride of the Davenant Carters, and go she would not, till I told her plump and plain that she was afraid!

My, how that made her jump! She turned a little pale, rose quietly, adjusted her hat at the mirror, took off her watch-bracelet and gave it to me to keep for her.

"I will go and see this Elizabeth Fortinbras now – and alone!" she said, with that nice quiet dignity which became her so well. I would greatly have liked to have gone along with her. But, first of all, she had not asked me, and, secondly, I knew that I had better not.

Cissy Carter had to see Elizabeth alone. Only they could arrange matters. Still, of course, both of them told me all about it afterwards, and it is from these two narratives that the following short account is written out.

Elizabeth was in the front shop, busy as a bee among the sweet things, white-aproned, and wearing dainty white armlets of linen which came from the wrist to above the elbow. Then these two looked at each other as only girls do – or perhaps more exactly, attractive young women of about the same age. Boys are different – they behave just like strange dogs on being introduced, sulky and ready to snarl. A young man seems to be wondering how such a contemptible fellow as that other fellow could possibly have gained admittance to a respectable house. Only experienced women can manage the business properly, putting just the proper amount of cordiality into the bow and handshake. Grown men – most of them, that is – allow their natural feeling of boredom to appear too obviously.

At any rate Cissy and Elizabeth took in each other at a glance, far more searching and exhaustive as to "points" than ever any man's could be. Then they bowed to each other very coldly.

"Will you come this way?" said Elizabeth, instantly discerning that Cissy had not come to New Erin Villa as a customer. Accordingly she led the way into the little sitting-room, all in pale creamy cretonne with old-fashioned roses scattered upon it, which her own taste and the full purse of Ex-Butcher Donnan had provided for her.

"Be good enough to take a seat," said Elizabeth Fortinbras. But she herself remained standing.

Now you never can tell by which end a girl – or a woman, for that matter – will tackle anything. All that you can be sure of is that it will not be the obvious and natural one – the one nearest her hand. So Cissy, instead of coming right out with her confession and having done with it, began by asking Elizabeth if she knew a Mr. Hugh John Picton Smith.