"He means it for a joke, darling," Lena said to Margaret. "He doesn"t mean to be rude--" She stood with her arms round Margaret, looking with soft reproachfulness at Mr. Garrett.
"Look here, I"m off," he said with a sudden inspiration; "good-morning,"
and in a moment he had disappeared down the direct pathway towards the farm.
XX
Hannah in the porch saw him coming.
"Mr. Garratt," she said, severely, "have you been for a walk? I thought I heard the pony go by when we were in church."
"Yes, I"ve been for a walk," he answered, huffily, for he was beginning to feel that matters at Woodside Farm were a little too much for him.
"Towsey says you went out directly the pony was put to."
"That"s all right. What then?"
"Where"s Margaret?"
"Up in the wood there," he said, nodding towards it, "with a young lady who, judging from her conversation, has swallowed a bottle of soothing syrup and let the cork come out inside her."
"And what did you go up to the wood for?" Hannah asked, severely.
"Because I chose. Look here, Miss Barton, I don"t want to be cross-examined, if you please."
"Well, what I should like to know is--to speak plainly--what are you coming here for, Mr. Garratt?"
"That"s my business," he answered. "If you like I"ll put the pony to at once and be done with it, though, on the whole, I should prefer having some dinner first, seeing that I"ve come a good way." After all, Mr.
Garratt had a fair temper, for he said the last words with a smile that somewhat pacified Hannah, who, seeing that she was likely to get the worst of it, drew in her horns.
"I didn"t mean to be disagreeable," she said, "but really it"s difficult to understand all the goings on here."
"That"s just what I think. Who is that girl with Margaret? She was just like a snake springing up from the green and wriggling about--said she knew Vincent."
Then Hannah, being somewhat further pacified, told him the history of yesterday"s visit.
"Well, I"m jiggered," Mr. Garratt answered, after a moment"s hesitation.
"I told you there was something behind it all. This brother of his, Lord Eastleigh--of course I"m on to him directly. He was an awful rummy lot--married Bella Barrington, who used to sing at the Cosmopolitan in the Hornsey Road. A pretty low lot, I can tell you. Well, I am--"
"Mr. Garratt," said Hannah horrified, "they are a set of people we should have nothing to do with."
"Rubbish. Margaret will be a toff."
"There"s no money with it."
"Well, that"s a pity," he said, "but it won"t take the t.i.tle away from them. I always knew they were somebodies."
"Hannah," said Towsey, coming from the kitchen, for it was only to Margaret that she gave a respectful prefix, "I"m ready for you to mix the salad."
"You"d better go," said Mr. Garratt, "I"ve got no end of an appet.i.te--I"ll just take a stroll to the end of the garden to improve it." For as Hannah turned her head he had seen Margaret coming towards the gate of the Dutch garden, and Mr. Garratt was a politic young man.
"Miss Margaret," he said, deferentially, "I want to apologize for what I said just now about your family and about your not going to church--it was my feelings that carried me away. I"ve just heard who you are. I always said you looked like a somebody; you may remember that I told you so that day going across the fields. And as for not going to church, why, I quite agree with what I believe Mrs. Vincent thinks, that it"s what one does outside it that matters, not what one does inside."
"It"s very kind of you to say all this, Mr. Garratt, but please let me pa.s.s." He walked beside her down the green pathway.
"You know what my feelings have always been," he said, "and if true devotion--" he felt as if this were the right line.
"Please don"t say anything more." She was almost distressed, for through the porch in the dim background she could see Hannah"s wrathful figure.
"If true devotion counts for anything," he went on, "why, you"d get it from me. I understand there isn"t any money to come with this t.i.tle, and it isn"t going to make any difference in anything, and you"ll want some one to love you just the same. We all want that, Miss Margaret, and--"
"Margaret, you"d better come in and not keep dinner waiting," Hannah called, shrilly. "I should have thought you had had enough of Mr.
Garratt, meeting him up in the wood when other people were in church."
Mr. Garratt was very silent at dinner. He had to decide on his own course of action. He came to the conclusion that the safest plan was to propitiate everybody, but it took his breath away to think that he, Jimmy Garratt, house agent of Petersfield and Guildford, grandson on his mother"s side of James Morgan, grocer at Midhurst, wanted to marry Miss Margaret Vincent, as he now described her to himself; still, there would be nothing lost by going on with it; besides, he was a good-looking chap, lots of girls liked him, and, after all, Margaret hadn"t any money. It would be a good move, he thought, to get her over to Guildford and let her see the house; it had a real drawing-room and a conservatory going out of it, and he could afford to let her spend a little money; she should do anything she liked, and if people got on in these days it didn"t matter what they were in the beginning. There were lots of them in Parliament who were n.o.bodies, why shouldn"t he get into Parliament, too, some day--he had always been rather good at speaking, and for matter of that he might get a t.i.tle of his own in the end? He had only to make money and get his name into the papers, and give a lot to some charity that royalty cared about, and there he"d be.
"You are very absent to-day, Mr. Garratt," Hannah said, as she gave him a large helping of raspberry and currant tart.
"It"s very warm, Miss Barton; very warm, indeed."
"I always find," said Mrs. Vincent, unlocking her beautiful lips, and looking like a woman in a legend, with her gray hair and high cheek bones, "that the summer is a time for thinking more than talking."
"You are right, Mrs. Vincent; don"t you agree, Miss Margaret?"
"I don"t know," Margaret answered, carelessly. "The summer is lovely, of course; it always seems as if the world had rolled itself up a little bit nearer to heaven--"
"I thought you didn"t believe in any such place," said Hannah, sharply.
Mrs. Vincent looked at her younger daughter with fond eyes. "One"s heart sometimes believes one thing and one"s head another," she said. But Margaret ate her tart in silence, and Mr. Garratt, still weighing the chances of his future, followed her example.
XXI
The Sunday tea was over. Hannah had successfully monopolized Mr. Garratt all the afternoon. He was becoming desperate. "She would drive a fellow mad," he thought; "why, the way she tramps into that kitchen with the tea things is enough to send any one a mile off her track. I should get the staggers if I married her; besides, she wouldn"t let one call one"s soul one"s own by the time she was forty." He looked towards the door of the best parlor. Mrs. Vincent and Margaret were there; he got up and went in boldly. "May I venture to ask for a little music?" he asked.
Margaret had risen quickly as he entered. "Oh, but it"s Sunday," she answered.
"I thought perhaps there wouldn"t be any objection to something sacred,"
he said. His manner was respectful, and altogether different from that of the morning; and he had been attentive to Hannah all the afternoon--which was soothing to Margaret.
"We used to sing and play hymns in mother"s time," Mrs. Vincent said; "the old piano was only given to the school when James died. It was worn out and I thought they"d be glad of it." The sequence was not quite clear, but no one perceived it. "I wish you could play hymns, Margey."
"Oh, but I can play something that is quite beautiful," she answered, and went towards the piano.