"Thank you so very, very much! You have been most kind!" and with a swift droop of her white eyelids she veiled those seductive "mirrors of the soul" beneath a concealing fringe of long golden-brown lashes--"It"s quite a new experience to find a clergyman able and willing to be a telegraph clerk as well! So useful, isn"t it?"
"In a village like this it is," rejoined Walden, gaily--"And after all, there"s not much use in being a minister unless one can practically succeed in the art of "ministering" to every sort of demand made upon one"s capabilities! Even to Miss Vancourt"s needs, should she require anything, from the preservation of trees to the sending of telegrams, that St. Rest can provide!"
Again Maryllia glanced at him, and again a little smile lifted the corners of her mouth.
"I must pay for the telegrams," she said abruptly--"Mrs. Tapple---"
"Yes, Miss--I"ve written it all down," murmured Mrs. Tapple nervously--"It"s right, Mr. Walden, isn"t it? If you would be so good as to look at it, bein" tuppence a word, it do make it different like, an" m"appen there might be a mistake---"
Walden glanced over the sc.r.a.p of paper on which she had scrawled her rough figures.
"Fivepence out, I declare, Mrs. Tapple!" he said, merrily. "Dear, dear! Whatever is going to become of you, eh? To cheat yourself wouldn"t matter--n.o.body minds THAT--but to do the British Government out of fivepence would be a dreadful thing! Now if I had not seen this you would have been what is called "short" this evening in making up accounts." Here he handed the corrected paper to Maryllia.
"I think you will find that right."
Maryllia opened her purse and paid the amount,--and Mrs. Tapple, in giving her change for a sovereign, included among the coins a bright new threepenny piece with a hole in it. Spying this little bit of silver, Maryllia held it up in front of Walden"s eyes triumphantly.
"Luck!" she exclaimed--"That"s for you! It"s a reward for your telegraphic operations! Will you be grateful if I give it to you?"
He laughed.
"Profoundly! It shall be my D.S.O.!"
"Then there you are!" and she placed the tiny coin in the palm of the hand he held out to receive it. "The labourer is worthy of his hire! Now you can never go about like some clergymen, grumbling and saying you work for no pay!" Her eyes sparkled mischievously. "What shall we do next? Oh, I know! Let"s buy some acid drops!"
Mrs. Tapple stared and smiled.
"Or pear-drops," continued Maryllia, glancing critically at the various jars of "sweeties,"--"I see the real old-fashioned pink ones up there,--lumpy at one end and tapering at the other. Do you like them? Or brandy b.a.l.l.s? I think the pear-drops carry one back to the age of ten most quickly! But which do you prefer?"
Walden tried to look serious, but could not succeed. Laughter twinkled all over his face, and he began to feel extremely young.
"Well,--really, Miss Vancourt,---" he began.
"There, I know what you are going to say!" exclaimed Maryllia--"You are going to tell me that it would never do for a clergyman to be seen munching pear-drops in his own parish. _I_ understand! But clergymen do ever so much. worse than that sometimes. They do, really! Two ounces of pear-drops for me, Mrs. Tapple, please!--and one of brandy b.a.l.l.s!"
Mrs. Tapple bustled out of her "Gove"nment" office, and came to the grocery counter to dispense these dainties.
"They stick to the jar so," said Maryllia, watching her thoughtfully; "They always did. I remember, as a child, seeing a man put his finger in to detach them. Don"t put your finger in, Mrs.
Tapple!--take a bit of wood--an old skewer or something. Oh, they"re coming out all right! That"s it!" And she popped one of the pear- drops into her mouth. "They are really very good--better than French fondants--so much more innocent and refreshing!" Here she took possession of the little paper-bags which Mrs. Tapple had filled with the sweets. "Thank you, Mrs. Tapple! If any answers to my telegrams come from Paris, please send them up to the Manor at once.
Good-morning!"
"Good-morning, Miss!" And Mrs. Tapple, curtseying, pulled the door of her double establishment wider open to let the young lady pa.s.s out, which she did, with a smile and nod, Walden following her.
Plato rose and paced majestically after his mistress, Nebbie trotting meekly at the rear, and so they all went forth from the postmistress"s garden into the road, where Walden, pausing, raised his hat in farewell.
"Oh, are you going?" queried Maryllia. "Won"t you walk with me as far as your own rectory?"
"Certainly, if you wish it,"--he answered with a slight touch of embarra.s.sment; "I thought perhaps---"
"You thought perhaps,--what?" laughed Maryllia, glancing up at him archly--"That I was going to make you eat pear-drops against your will? Not I! I wouldn"t be so rude. But I really thought I ought to buy something from Mrs. Tapple,--she was so worried, poor old dear!- -till you came in. Then she looked as happy as though she saw a vision of angels. She"s a perfect picture, with her funny old shawl and spectacles and k.n.o.bbly red fingers--and do you know, all the time you were working the telegraph you were under the fragrant shadow of a big piece of bacon which was "curing,"--positively "curing" over your head! Couldn"t you smell it?"
Walden"s eyes twinkled.
"There was certainly a fine aroma in the air," he said--"But it seemed to me no more than the customary perfume common to Mrs.
Tapple"s surroundings. I daresay it was new to you! A country clergyman is perhaps the only human being who has to inure himself to bacon odours as the prevailing sweetness of cottage interiors."
Maryllia laughed. She had a pretty laugh, silver-clear and joyous without loudness.
"Fancy your being so clever as to be able to send off telegrams!"
she exclaimed--"What an accomplishment for a Churchman! Don"t you want to know all about the messages you sent?--who the persons are, and what I have to do with them?"
"Not in the least!" answered John, smiling.
"Are you not of a curious disposition?"
"I never care about other people"s business," he said, meeting her upturned eyes with friendly frankness--"I have enough to do to attend to my own."
"Then you are positively inhuman!" declared Maryllia--"And absolutely unnatural! You are, really! Every two-legged creature on earth wants to find out all the ins and cuts of every other two- legged creature,--for if this were not the case wars would be at an end, and the wicked cease from troubling and the weary be at rest.
So just because you don"t want to know about my two friends in Paris, I"m going to tell you. Louis Gigue is the greatest teacher of singing there is,--and Cicely Bourne is his pupil, a perfectly wonderful little girl with a marvellous compa.s.s of voice, whose training and education I am paying for. I want her with me here--and I have sent for her;--Gigue can come on if he thinks it necessary to give her a few lessons during the summer, but of course she is not to sing in public until she is sixteen. She is only fourteen now."
Walden listened in silence. He was looking at his companion sideways, and noting the delicate ebb and flow of the rose tint in her cheeks, the bright flecks of gold in the otherwise brown hair, and the light poise of her dainty rounded figure as she stepped along beside him with an almost aerial grace and swiftness.
"She was the child of a Cornish labourer,"--went on Maryllia. "Her mother sold her for ten pounds. Yes!--wasn"t it dreadful!" This, as John"s face expressed surprise. "But it is true! You shall hear all the story some day,--it is quite a little romance. And she is so clever!--you would think her ever so much older than she is, to hear her talk. Sometimes she is rather blunt, and people get offended with her-but she is true--oh, so true!--she wouldn"t do a mean action for the world! She is just devoted to me,--and that is perhaps why I am devoted to her,--because after all, it"s a great thing to be loved, isn"t it?"
"It is indeed!" replied John, mechanically, beginning to feel a little dazed under the influence of the bright eyes, animated face, smiling lips and clear, sweet voice--"It ought to be the best of all things."
"It ought to be, and it is!" declared Maryllia emphatically. "Oh, what a lovely bush of lilac!" And she hastened on a few steps in order to look more closely at the admired blossoms, which were swaying in the light breeze over the top of a thick green hedge-- "Why, it must be growing in your garden! Yes, it is!--of course it is!--this is your gate. May I come in?"
She paused, her hand on the latch,--and for a moment Walden hesitated. A wave of colour swept up to his brows,--he was conscious of a struggling desire to refuse her request, united to a still more earnest craving to grant it. She looked at him, wistfully smiling.
"May I come in?" she repeated.
He advanced, and opened the gate, standing aside for her to pa.s.s.
"Of course you may!"--he said gently,--"And welcome!"
XIV
Now it happened that Bainton was at that moment engaged in training some long branches of honey-suckle across the rectory walls, and being half-way up a ladder for the purpose, the surprise he experienced at seeing "Pa.s.son" and Miss Vancourt enter the garden together and walk slowly side by side across the lawn, was so excessive, that in jerking his head round to convince himself that it was not a vision but a reality, he nearly lost his balance.
"Woa, steady!" he muttered, addressing the ladder which for a second swayed beneath him--"Woa, I sez! This ain"t no billowy ocean with wot they calls an underground swell! So the ice "ave broke, "ave it!
She, wot don"t like clergymen, an" he, wot don"t like ladies, "as both come to saunterin" peaceful like with one another over the blessed green gra.s.s all on a fine May mornin"! Which it"s gettin"
nigh on June now an" no sign o" the weather losin" temper. Well, well! Wonders won"t never cease it"s true, but I"d as soon a"
thought o" my old "ooman dancin" a "ornpipe among her cream cheeses as that Pa.s.son Walden would a" let Miss Vancourt inside this "ere gate so easy like, an" he a bacheldor. But there!--arter all, he"s gettin" on in years, an" she"s ever so much younger than he is, an"
I dessay he"s made up his mind to treat "er kind like, as "twere her father, which he should do, bein" spiritooal "ead o" the village, an" as for the pretty face of "er, he"s not the man to look at it more"n once, an" then he couldn"t tell you wot it"s like. He favours his water-lilies mor"n females,--ah, an" I bet he"d give ten pound for a new specimen of a flower when he wouldn"t lay out a "apenny on a new specimen of a woman." Here, pausing in his reflections, he again looked cautiously round from his high vantage point of view on the ladder, and saw Walden break off a spray of white lilac from one bush of a very special kind near the edge of the lawn, and give it to Miss Vancourt. "Well, now that do beat me altogether!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed under his breath. "If he"s told me once, he"s told me a "undred times that he won"t "ave no blossoms broke off that bush on no account An" there he is a-pickin" of it hisself! That"s a kind of thing which do make me feel that men is a poor feeble-minded lot,-- it do reely now!"
But feeble-minded or not, John had nevertheless gathered the choice flower, and moreover, had found a certain pleasure in giving it to his fair companion, who inhaled its delicious odour with an appreciative smile.