_ CHAPTER XI. 'A GIRL AFTER MY OWN HEART'
'Be to their virtues very kind,
Be to their faults a little blind,
And put a padlock on the mind.'
ANON.
'I will go to the Gray Cottage this afternoon,' was Audrey's first thought the next morning when she woke; but she kept this intention to herself when Geraldine came in, after breakfast, to beg for some favourite recipes of her mother's that she had lost or mislaid. 'And if you have nothing better to do,' she said, turning to Audrey, who was filling the flower-vases, 'I shall be very glad of your company this afternoon, as Percival is going up to London.'
'Shall you be alone, Gage? I mean, are you expecting any special visitor?'
'Well, old Mrs. Drayton is driving over to luncheon with that deaf niece of hers; but they will go away early--they always do. Come up later, Audrey, and bring your work; and perhaps Michael will fetch you--it is so long since we have seen him. I will not ask you both to stay to dinner, as Percival is always a little tired after a journey to London, and a
tete-a-tete dinner will suit him better; but we could have a long afternoon--you know you refused me yesterday because of the O'Briens.'
'I will come up to tea, Gage,' interrupted Audrey somewhat hastily; 'I would rather avoid Miss Drayton, and Miss Montague is simply terrible. You may expect me about half-past four, and I will give Michael your message.'
And Audrey carried off her vase to avoid any more necessary questioning. Gage seemed always wanting her now; was it all sisterly affection, Audrey wondered, or a clever device to counteract the Blake influence?
'By the bye, mother,' observed Mrs. Harcourt carelessly, as she gathered up sundry papers, 'I suppose you will soon be leaving your card on Mrs. Blake? Percival thought I had better call with you, and if you are disengaged next Tuesday or Wednesday----'
'Why, that is a week hence, my love!'
'Yes, mother dear, I know; but I have so many engagements just now that I am obliged to make my plans beforehand. Besides, we could not very well call before--you know what a muddle they were in.'
'Yes, I remember; and Audrey helped them so nicely to get straight. Very well, we will say Tuesday; and I really am very much obliged to Percival for his suggestion, for after all this talk, and the things Edith Bryce told you yesterday, I shall be quite nervous in calling alone.' But here a significant look from her daughter checked her, and she changed the subject rather awkwardly.
'So dear Edith has been talking again,' thought Audrey, as she stepped out on the terrace with her empty basket; 'I almost wish I had been at Hillside yesterday, and heard things with my own ears.' And then she stopped to cut off a dark crimson rose that grew under the schoolroom window, and as she did so she became aware that Mr. Blake had put down his book and was watching her. She gave him a smile and a nod, and walked to the other end of the garden.
'I always forget the schoolroom window,' she said to herself, with a slight blush, as she recalled that fixed look; 'Mr. Ollier generally sat with his back to the window and took no notice--he was as blind as a bat, too--but Mr. Blake is very observant.'
Mrs. Ross had arranged to drive into Dulverton after luncheon with her husband. When Audrey had seen them off, and had exchanged a parting joke with her father, she started off for the Gray Cottage. Things had arranged themselves admirably: she had two hours before Geraldine would expect her. Michael had consented to fetch her--Kester was coming to him early in the afternoon, and he had also promised to take a class for Dr. Ross; he would put in an appearance about half-past five. And Audrey professed herself satisfied with this arrangement.
Audrey met Kester on her way to the Cottage. The poor boy was dragging himself along rather painfully on his crutches; the heat tried him, he said, but he seemed bright and cheerful. Audrey looked pitifully at his shabby jacket and old boots; she noticed, too, the frayed edges of his wristbands. 'Is it poverty or bad management?' she thought; and then she asked Kester how he liked his new tutor. The boy flushed up in a moment.
'Awfully--I like him awfully, Miss Ross, and so does Cyril. You have no idea of the trouble he takes with me; I know nothing of mathematics, but I mean to learn. Why,' went on Kester, with an important air, 'I am so busy now, working up for Cyril and Captain Burnett, that I can hardly find time for Mollie's sums and Latin.'
Evidently Kester did not wish to be pitied for his additional labours.
'Poor fellow, how happy he looks!' Audrey said to herself, as she went on. 'Michael is doing good work there.' But somehow she could not forget those frayed wristbands all the remainder of the day; there was a button off his jacket, too--she had noticed the unsightly gap. 'I wish Mrs. Blake had a little more method,' she thought; 'Mollie and Kester are certainly rather neglected. How could poor Mollie go to chapel in that frock?'
Audrey let herself in at the green gate; but this time there was no Mollie on the threshold. She rang, and Biddy came hobbling out of the kitchen.
'The mistress is in there,' she said, with a jerk of her head towards the dining-room, and then she threw open the door. 'Here's Miss Ross, mistress,' she said unceremoniously.
Biddy was evidently unaccustomed to parlour work. Mollie, who was sewing in the window beside her mother, threw down her work with a delighted exclamation, and Zack gave a bark of recognition. Mrs. Blake welcomed her very cordially.
'My dear Miss Ross,' she said in her soft, pretty voice, 'we thought you had quite forsaken us; poor Mollie has been as restless as possible. I cannot tell you how pleased I am to see you again; I was half afraid you had disappeared altogether, after the fashion of a benevolent brownie.'
'I have so many friends,' began Audrey; but Mrs. Blake interrupted her:
'There, I told you so, Mollie. I said to this foolish child, when she was bemoaning your absence, "You may take my word for it, Mollie, Miss Ross has a large circle of friends and acquaintances--it is only to be expected in her position--and of course we must not monopolise her; especially as we are new-comers and comparative strangers."'
'Mollie thinks differently--don't you, Mollie? We are quite old friends, are we not?' and Audrey gave her a kind glance.
How flushed and tired the poor child was looking! but she brightened up in a moment.
'Of course we are not strangers,' she returned, quite indignantly; 'mamma is only saying that because she wishes you to contradict her. Oh, Miss Ross,' nestling up to her, 'I have so wanted to see you--I have looked out for you every day!'
'I could not possibly come before, dear.'
'No--but now you will stay for a long time? Mamma, won't you ask Miss Ross to stay to tea? and Biddy will bake some scones. Biddy will do anything for Miss Ross; she said so the other day.'
'My dear child, I could not possibly stay; I am going to have tea with my sister--she lives in one of the Hill houses. Another time, Mollie,' as a cloud of disappointment passed over Mollie's face; and to divert her thoughts she took up the work: 'Why, what pretty stuff! is this for your new frock?'
Mollie's brow cleared like magic.
'Yes; is it not lovely? Cyril chose it; he bought it for my last birthday, only mamma was too busy to make it up. But both my frocks will be done to-night--mamma says she will not go to bed until they are finished.'
'Well, and I mean to keep my word,' returned Mrs. Blake good-humouredly; 'and your new hat will be trimmed, too, and then Cyril will not grumble any more about his sister's shabbiness. I have been working like a slave ever since I got up this morning, and yet this naughty child pretended she was tired because I wanted her to stitch the sleeves.'
'But, mamma, I had to iron all those handkerchiefs for Biddy.'
'Yes, I know--and it was terribly hot in the kitchen; she does look tired, does she not, Miss Ross? I have a good idea, Mollie: put down that sleeve, and I will finish it myself in a twinkling, and fetch your hat and go down to the cricket-field and bring Cyril back with you to tea--it will be a nice walk for you.'
'Oh, mamma!' protested Mollie; 'I would so much rather stay here with you and Miss Ross, and I don't care about the walk.'
'But if I wish you to go;' and there was a certain inflection in Mrs. Blake's soft voice which evidently obliged poor Mollie to obey. She rose reluctantly, but there were tears of vexation in her eyes. Audrey felt grieved for her favourite, but she was unwilling to interfere; she only took the girl's hand and detained her a moment.
'Mrs. Blake, could you spare Mollie to me to-morrow afternoon? I want to show her our garden--it is looking so lovely just now.'
'You are very kind,' hesitating slightly; 'but are you sure that it will be convenient to Mrs. Ross?'
'My mother has nothing to do with it--Mollie will be my visitor,' returned Audrey quietly; and then she continued diplomatically: 'I know my mother intends to call on you next week, Mrs. Blake; she and my sister were planning it this morning--they are only waiting until you are settled.'
Evidently Mrs. Blake was much pleased with this piece of intelligence; she coloured slightly, and her manner became more animated.
'That is very kind; I do so long to see Mrs. Ross: Cyril is charmed with her, and he thinks Mrs. Harcourt wonderfully handsome. Oh yes, I can easily spare Mollie; and her frock and hat will be all ready. Now off with you, child,' with laughing peremptoriness; and Mollie only paused to kiss her friend and whisper that she was quite happy now, as she would have her all to herself the next day.
'Mollie has got to a difficult age,' observed Mrs. Blake, stitching rapidly as she spoke; and Audrey again admired the lovely profile and finely shaped head; 'she is getting a little self-willed and wants her own way. And then she is such a chatterbox; she will hardly let me get in a word. Sometimes I like to have my friends to myself; you can understand that, Miss Ross?'
'Oh yes, that is easily understood,' returned Audrey, who nevertheless missed Mollie.
'I thought I could talk to you more easily without her this afternoon; I wanted to speak to you about your cousin--Captain Burnett is your cousin, is he not?'
'He is my father's cousin.'
'Ah, well, that is much the same. Is he a pale, slight-looking man with a reddish-brown moustache?'
'Certainly that description suits Michael. I think he has such a nice face, Mrs. Blake.'
'I daresay; he is not handsome, but he looks like a soldier. What keen, bright eyes he has! The children have talked about him so much that I was quite curious to see him.'
'It is certain that you have seen him; no one else in Rutherford answers to that description. It is odd how everyone makes that remark about Michael's eyes.'
'Yes, they are a little too searching. I have plenty of courage, but I am disposed to feel afraid of Captain Burnett. What I wanted to say, Miss Ross, is this--that I am truly grateful to your cousin for his kind interest in my poor boy.'
'Do you mean this as a message?'
'That is just as you think proper; but in my opinion he ought to know how much Kester's mother appreciates his kindness. When I first heard of the plan, I will confess to you honestly, Miss Ross, I was a little bit alarmed. Kester did not explain things properly--he would have it that Captain Burnett meant to give him lessons here, and I told Cyril that would never do. Cyril was a trifle bothered about it himself, until he had a talk with Captain Burnett and found out that Kester was to go to Woodcote.'
'Oh yes, of course; Michael intended that all along.'
'True, and I ought not to have flurried myself. But if you only knew what I went through at Headingly, and the unkind things that people said of me! A burnt child dreads the fire, and I was determined that no one should have an opportunity of speaking against me at Rutherford. What a hard world it is, Miss Ross! Just because I am--well'--with a little laugh--'what you call good-looking--why should I deny the truth? I am sure I care little about my looks except for Cyril's sake; but just because I am not plain, people take advantage of my unprotected position. Oh, the things that were said!' with a quick frown of annoyance at the recollection. 'I daresay some of them have reached your ears. Haven't you heard, for example, that I tried to set my cap at Dr. Forester, only his daughter grew alarmed and insulted me so grossly that I vowed never to speak to him again? Have you not heard that, Miss Ross?'
Audrey was obliged to confess that something of this story had reached her.
'But I did not believe it, Mrs. Blake, and I do not believe it now,' she continued hastily.
Mrs. Blake's eyes filled with indignant tears.
'It was not true--not a word of it!' she returned in a low vehement voice. 'You may ask Cyril. Oh, how angry he was when the report reached him! He came home and took me in his arms and said we should not stay there--no one should talk against his mother. They did say such horrid things against me, Miss Ross; and yet how could I help Dr. Forester calling on me sometimes? He was never invited--no one asked him to repeat his visits. Mollie will tell you I was barely civil to him. I suppose he admired me, that is the truth; and his daughter knew it, and it made her bitter. Well, after that, I declared that nothing would induce me to receive gentlemen again, unless they were Cyril's friends and he brought them himself.'
Audrey was silent. She had been very angry when Geraldine had told her the story. She had declared it was a pure fabrication--a piece of village gossip.
'Besides, if it were true,' she had continued, 'where is the harm of a wealthy widower, with one daughter, falling in love with a good-looking widow? And yet Edith Bryce seems to hint darkly at some misconduct on Mrs. Blake's part.'
'You are putting it too strongly, dear,' replied her sister. 'Edith only said she considered Mrs. Blake rather flippant in manner, and a little too gracious to gentlemen----' but Audrey had refused to hear more.
'I was utterly wretched at Headingly,' went on Mrs. Blake, in her sweet, plaintive voice; 'and Cyril grew to hate it at last--for my sake. He says he is sure it will be different here, and that people are so much nicer. I believe he thinks you angelic, Miss Ross, and your mother only a degree less so. Only last night he said to me, as we were walking up and down in the moonlight, "I am certain you will be happy at Rutherford, mother. You have one nice friend already, and----" But, there, I had better not repeat my boy's words.'
Audrey felt anxious to change the subject.
'Where did you live before you went to Headingly?' she asked abruptly, and Mrs. Blake was clever enough to take her cue.
'We were in lodgings in Richmond,' she answered readily. 'You know we were poor, and I was straining every nerve to keep Cyril at Oxford. I had been saving up every year for it, but I cannot deny we were sadly pinched. I had to send Biddy home for a year or two, and Mollie and Kester and I lived in three little rooms, in such a dull street. Cyril generally got a holiday engagement for the summer, but when he joined us--I procured him a bedroom near us--it used to make him very unhappy to see the way we lived. But I always comforted him by reminding him that one day he would make a home for us, and that cheered him up.'
'You were certainly very good to him. Some mothers would not have done half so much,' observed Audrey.
She was repaid for this little speech, as a smile, almost infantile in its sweetness, came to Mrs. Blake's lip.
'I wish Cyril could hear you say that. But he knows--he feels--I have done my best for him. Yes, my darling, I have indeed!' She clasped her hands and sighed. 'What did a little extra work, a few sacrifices, matter, when one looked to the future? We were very straitened--the poor children did not always have what they needed--but I don't think we were, any of us, unhappy.'
'I can so well understand that. I think people are too much afraid of being poor. I could never see, myself, why poverty should hinder happiness.'
'Do you not?' looking at her a little curiously; 'but you have not served my apprenticeship. You do not know how hard it is for a pleasure-loving nature to be deprived of so many sources of enjoyment--to have to stint one's taste for pretty things--to be perpetually saying "no" to one's self.'
'And yet you own that you were happy.'
'Well, yes, after a fashion. I think the poor children were, until Kester got so ill. Mollie and I used to walk about Richmond Park and build castles in the air. We planned what we would do if we were rich, and sometimes we would amuse ourselves by looking into the shop-windows and thinking what we should like to buy--like a couple of gutter children--and sometimes, on a winter's evening, we would blow out the candles and sit round the fire and tell stories.'
'And then you say Kester fell ill?'
'Well, it was not exactly an illness. But he seemed to dwindle and pine, somehow, and Cyril and I got dreadfully anxious about him. I don't think Richmond suited him, and I could not give him the comforts he needed; and he fretted so about his want of education. He seemed to get better directly we went to Headingly and Cyril began to give him lessons.'
'Yes, I see;' and then Audrey took advantage of the pause to look at her watch. It was later than she thought, and she rose reluctantly to go. Mrs. Blake rose too.
'Don't you think me an odd, unconventional sort of person to tell you all this?' she asked a little abruptly. 'Do you know, Cyril often says that I make him very anxious, because I am so dreadfully impulsive and speak out everything I think; but I made up my mind that afternoon when Cyril told me that Mrs. Bryce was a connection of your sister's that I would talk to you about the Headingly worries on the first opportunity.'
'I am very glad you have spoken to me; I think it was very brave of you.'
'No, my dear Miss Ross, not brave, but cowardly. I was so afraid you would be prejudiced against me; and you must know that I have taken a great fancy to you. I am a very strange creature: I always like or dislike a person at first sight, and I never--perhaps I should say I scarcely ever--change my opinion.'
'I think that is a great mistake. It is impossible to read some people at first sight.'
'Perhaps so; but you were distinctly legible. When I looked out of my window and saw you setting out the little tea-table on the lawn with Mollie, I said to myself, "That is a girl after my own heart."'
Audrey laughed; but the little compliment pleased her. Somehow Mrs. Blake's manner made everything she said seem charming. Audrey felt more and more drawn to this fascinating woman.
'And I want you to come very often, and to be my friend as well as Mollie's,' with soft insistence.
'Yes; yours and Mollie's and Kester's,' replied Audrey in an amused voice.
'And not Cyril's? My dear Miss Ross, I hope you do not mean to exclude Cyril.'
'Oh, of course not,' rather hurriedly. 'But, Mrs. Blake, you must really let me go, or Geraldine will be waiting tea; as it is, I shall have to walk very fast, to make up for lost time.'
Audrey's thoughts were very busy as she walked swiftly up the Hill.
'I like her--I like her exceedingly,' she said to herself; 'I have never met a more interesting person: she is so naive and winning in her manner. I feel I shall soon love her; and yet all the time I see her faults so plainly. She is terribly unpractical, and manages as badly as possible. Edith Bryce was right when she said that. And she is foolish with regard to her eldest son--no mother ought to be so partial. I am afraid Kester must feel it; all his interests are secondary to his brother's. It is hardly fair. And Mollie, too--the child seems a perfect drudge. No, my dear woman, I admire you more than I can say, and I know I shall very soon get fond of you; but you are not blameless.'
And then a curious doubt crept into Audrey's mind: with all her impulsiveness, was not Mrs. Blake rather a clever woman, to tell that Forester story in her own way? Audrey had already heard a very different version. She knew Agatha Forester had lived in deadly terror of the charming widow. It was true that she had declined to believe the story, and that her sympathies were enlisted on Mrs. Blake's side; but, still, was it not rather a clever stratagem on Mrs. Blake's part to secure her as an ally? But Audrey dismissed this thought as quickly as it passed through her mind.
'Why, what nonsense!' she argued. 'I am accusing Mrs. Blake of being a little deep, when she herself owned frankly that she was anxious to prejudice me in her favour. Of course she knew Edith Bryce would talk to Gage, and it was only wise of her to tell me the truth. People must have treated her very badly at Headingly, or her son would not have taken her part. He seems to have plenty of common-sense, although he dotes on her. They are a wonderfully interesting family, and I seem to know them all so well already.' And this last reflection brought her to Hillside. _