Laura laughed.
"We can but try. But now then,"--she bent forward and put her hands impulsively on Polly"s shoulders,--"tell me about everybody and everything. How"s Daffady? how"s the cow that was ill? how"re the calves?
how"s Hubert?"
She laughed again, but there was moisture in her look. For the thousandth time, her heart told her that in this untoward marriage she was wrenching herself anew from her father and all his world.
Polly rather tossed her head at the mention of Hubert. She replied with some tartness that he was doing very well--n.o.body indeed could be doing better. Did Laura"s eyebrows go up the very slightest trifle? If so, the sister beat down the surprise. Hubert no doubt had been upset, and a bit wild, after--well, Laura might guess what! But that was all past now, long ago. There was a friend, a musical friend, a rescuer, who had appeared, in the shape of a young organist who had come to lead the Froswick Philharmonic Society. Hubert was living with him now; and the young man, of whom all Froswick thought a wonderful deal, was looking after him, and making him write his songs. Some of them were to be sung at a festival----
Laura clapped her hands.
"I told him!" she said gayly. "If he"ll only work, he"ll do. And he is keeping straight?"
Her look was keen and sisterly. She wished to show that she had forgotten and forgiven. But Polly resented it.
"Why shouldn"t he be keeping straight?" she asked. No doubt Laura had thought him just a ne"er do weel. But he was nothing of the sort--he was a bit wild and unruly, as young men are--"same as t" colts afoor yo break "em." But Laura would have done much better for herself if she had stayed quietly with him that night at Braeside, and let him take her over the sands, as he wished to, instead of running away from him in that foolish way.
Polly spoke with significance--nay, with heat. Laura was first startled, then abashed.
"Do you think I made a ridiculous fuss?" she said humbly. "Perhaps I did.
But if--if--" she spoke slowly, drawing patterns on the wood of the stile with her finger, "if I hadn"t seen him drunk once--I suppose I shouldn"t have been afraid."
"Well, you"d no call to be afraid!" cried Polly. "Hubert vowed to me, as he hadna had a drop of onything. And after all, he"s a relation--an if you"d walked wi him, you"d not ha had telegrams sent aboot you to make aw th" c.o.o.ntry taak!"
"Telegrams!" Laura stared. "Oh, I know--Mr. Helbeck telegraphed to the station-master--but it must have come after I"d left the station."
"Aye--an t" station-master sent word back to Mr. Helbeck! Perhaps you doan"t knaw onything aboot that!" exclaimed Polly triumphantly.
Laura turned rather pale.
"A telegram to Mr. Helbeck?"
Polly, surprised at so much ignorance, could not forego the sensation that it offered her. She bit her lip, but the lip would speak. So the story of the midnight telegram--as it had been told by that G.o.dly man Mr.
Cawston of Braeside to that other G.o.dly man Mr. Bayley, perpetual curate of Browhead, and as by now it had gone all about the country-side--came piecemeal out.
"Oh! an at that Papist shop i" th" High Street--you remember that sickly-lukin fellow at the dance--they do say at they do taak shameful!"
exclaimed Polly indignantly.
"What do they say?" said Laura in a low voice.
Polly hesitated. Then out of sheer nervousness she blundered into the harshest possible answer.
"Well, they said that Mr. Helbeck could do no different, that he did it to save his sister from knowing----"
"Knowing what?" said Laura.
Polly declared that she wasn"t just certain. "A set o" slanderin backbitin tabbies as soom o" them Catholics is!" But she believed they said that Mr. Helbeck had asked Miss Fountain to marry him out of kindness, to shut people"s mouths, and keep it from his sister----
"Keep what?" said Laura. Her eyes shone in her quivering proud face.
"Why, I suppose--at you"d been carryin on wi Hubert, and walkin aboot wi him aw neet," said Polly reluctantly.
And she again insisted how much wiser it would have been if Laura had just gone quietly over the sands to Marsland. There, no doubt, she might have got a car straight away, and there might have been no talk whatever.
"Mightn"t there?" said Laura. Her little chin was propped in her hand.
Her gaze swept the distant water of the estuary mouth, as it lay alternately dark and shining under the storm lights of the clouds.
"An I"ll juist warn yo o" yan thing, Laura," said Polly, with fresh energy. "There"s soom one at Bannisdale itsel, as spreads aw maks o"
tales. There"s a body theer, as is noa friend o" yours."
"Oh! Mrs. Denton," said Laura languidly. "Of course."
Then she fell silent. Not a word pa.s.sed the small tightened lips. The eyes were fixed on distance or vacancy.
Polly began to be frightened. She had not meant any real harm, though perhaps there had been just a touch of malice in her revelations. Laura was going to marry a Papist; that was bad. But also she was going to marry into a sphere far out of the Masons" ken; and she had made it very plain that Hubert and the likes of Hubert were not good enough for her.
Polly was scandalised on religion"s account; but also a little jealous and sore, in a natural feminine way, on her own; the more so as Mr.
Seaton had long since ceased to pay Sunday visits to the farm, and Polly had a sharp suspicion as to the when and why of that gentleman"s disillusionment. There had been a certain temptation to let the future mistress of Bannisdale know that the neighbourhood was not all whispering humbleness towards her.
But at bottom Polly was honest and kind. So when she saw Laura sit so palely still, she repented her. She implored that Laura would not "worrit" herself about such fooleries. And then she added:
"But I wonder at Mr. Helbeck didna juist tell yo himsel aboot that telegram!"
"Do you?" said Laura. Her eyes flashed. She got down from the stile.
"Good-bye, Polly! I must be going home."
Suddenly Polly gripped her by the arm.
"Luke there!" she said in excitement. "Luke!--theer he goes! That"s Teddy--Teddy Williams! I knew as I had summat to tell you--and when you spoak o" Hubert--it went oot o" my head."
Laura looked at her cousin first, in astonishment, and then at the dark figure walking on the road below--the straight white road that ran across the marsh, past the lonely forge of old Ben Williams, the wheelwright, to the foot of the tall "Scar," opposite, where it turned seaward, and so vanished in the dimness of the coast. It was the Jesuit certainly. The two girls saw him plainly in the strong storm light. He was walking slowly with bent head, and seemed to be reading. His solitary form, black against the white of the road, made the only moving thing in the wide, rain-drenched landscape.
Laura instantly guessed that he had been paying his duty visit to his home. And Polly, it appeared, had been a witness of it.
For the cottage adjoining the wheelwright"s workshop and forge, where Edward Williams had been brought up, was now inhabited by his father and sister. The sister, Jenny, was an old friend of Polly Mason"s, who had indeed many young memories of the scholastic himself. They had been all children or schoolmates together.
And this afternoon, while she was in the parlour with Jenny, all of a sudden--voices and clamour in the forge outside! The son, the outcast son, had quietly presented himself to his father.
"Oh, an sic a to-do! His fadther wadna let him ben. "Naa," he says, "if thoo"s got owt to say, thoo may say it i" th" shop. Jenny doan"t want tha!" An Jenny luked oot--an I just saw Teddy turn an speak to her--beggin her like, a bit masterfu too, aw t" time--and she flounced back again--"Keep yor distance, will yer!" an slammed to the door--an fell agen it, cryin. An sic a shoutin an hollerin frae the owd man! He made a gradely noise, he did--bit never a word fra Teddy--not as yo cud hear, I"ll uphowd yo! An at la.s.st--when Jenny an I opened t" door again--juist a cranny like--theer he was, takin hissel off--his fadther screamin afther him--an he wi his Papish coat, an his head hangin as thoo there wor a load o" peat on it--an his hands crossed--soa pious! Aye, theer he goes!--an he may goa!" cried Polly, her face flaming as it followed the Jesuit out of sight. "When a mon"s treated his aan mother that gate, it"s weary wark undoin it. Aye, soa "tis, Mr. Teddy--soa "tis!" And she raised her voice vindictively.
Laura"s lips curled.
"Do you think he cares--one rap? It was his duty to go and see his father--so he went. And now he"s all the more certain he"s on the road to heaven--because his father abused him, and his sister turned him out.
He"s going to be a priest directly--and a missionary after that--and a holy martyr, too, if he gets his deserts. There"s always fever, or natives, handy. What do earth-worms like mothers and sisters matter to him?"
Polly stared. Even she, as she looked, as she heard, felt that a gulf opened--that a sick soul spoke.
"Oh! an I"d clean forgot," she faltered--"as he must be stayin at Bannisdale--as yo wad be seein him."
"I see so many of them," said Laura wearily. She took up her bag, that had been leaning against the stile. "Now, good-bye!"