"I must just think about it quietly," went on the girl. "And I must write a note to say so.... Father ..."
He glanced in her direction.
"Father, about being fond of a man.... Need it be--well, as I was fond of Frank? I don"t think Lord Talgarth could have expected that, could he? But if you--well--get on with a man very well, understand him--can stand up to him without annoying him ... and ... and care for him, really, I mean, in such a way that you like being with him very much, and look up to him very much in all kinds of ways--(I"m very sorry to have to talk like this, but whom am I to talk to, father dear?) Well, if I found I did care for Lord Talgarth like that--like a sort of daughter, or niece, and more than that too, would that--"
"I don"t know," said the Rector, abruptly standing up. "I don"t know; you mustn"t ask me. You must settle all that yourself."
She looked up at him, startled, it seemed, by the change in his manner.
"Father, dear--" she began, with just the faintest touch of pathetic reproach in her voice. But he did not appear moved by it.
"You must settle," he said. "You have all the data. I haven"t. I--"
He stepped towards the door.
"Tell me as soon as you have decided," he said, and went out.
(III)
The little brown dog called Lama, who in an earlier chapter once trotted across a lawn, and who had lately been promoted to sleeping upon Jenny"s bed, awoke suddenly that night and growled a low breathy remonstrance.
He had been abruptly kicked from beneath the bedclothes.
"Get off, you heavy little beast," said a voice in the darkness.
Lama settled himself again with a grunt, half of comfort, half of complaint.
"_Get off!_" came the voice again, and again his ribs were heaved at by a foot.
He considered it a moment or two, and even shifted nearer the wall, still blind with sleep; but the foot pursued him, and he awoke finally to the conviction that it would be more comfortable by the fire; there was a white sheepskin there, he reflected. As he finally reached the ground, a scratching was heard in the corner, and he was instantly alert, and the next moment had fitted his nose, like a kind of india-rubber pad, deep into a small mouse-hole in the wainscoting, and was breathing long noisy sighs down into the delicious and gamey-smelling darkness.
"Oh! be quiet!" came a voice from the bed.
Lama continued his investigations unmoved, and having decided, after one long final blow, that there was to be no sport, returned to the sheepskin with that brisk independent air that was so characteristic of him. He was completely awake now, and stood eyeing the bed a moment, with the possibility in his mind that his mistress was asleep again, and that by a very gentle leap--But a match was struck abruptly, and he lay down, looking, with that appearance of extreme wide-awakedness in his black eyes that animals always wear at night, at his restless mistress.
He could not quite understand what was the matter.
First she lit a candle, took a book from the small table by the bed and began to read resolutely. This continued till Lama"s eyes began to blink at the candle flame, and then he was suddenly aware that the light was out and the book closed, and all fallen back again into the clear gray tones which men call darkness.
He put his head down on his paws, but his eyebrows rose now and again as he glanced at the bed.
Then the candle was lighted again after a certain s.p.a.ce of time, but this time there was no book opened. Instead, his mistress took her arms out of bed, and clasped them behind her head, staring up at the ceiling....
This was tiresome, as the light was in his eyes, and his body was just inert enough with sleep to make movement something of an effort....
Little by little, however, his eyebrows came down, remained down, and his eyes closed....
He awoke again at a sound. The candle was still burning, but his mistress had rolled over on to her side and seemed to be talking gently to herself. Then she was over again on this side, and a minute later was out of bed, and walking to and fro noiselessly on the soft carpet.
He watched her with interest, his eyes only following her. He had never yet fully understood this mysterious change of aspect that took place every night--the white thin dress, the altered appearance of the head, and--most mysterious of all--the two white things that ought to be feet, but were no longer hard and black. He had licked one of them once tentatively, and had found that the effect was that it had curled up suddenly; there had been a sound as of pain overhead, and a swift slap had descended upon him.
He was observing these things now--to and fro, to and fro--and his eyes moved with them.
After a certain s.p.a.ce of time the movement stopped. She was standing still near a carved desk--important because a mouse had once been described sitting beneath it; and she stood so long that his eyes began to blink once more. Then there was a rustle of paper being torn, and he was alert again in a moment. Perhaps paper would be thrown for him presently....
She came across to the hearth-rug, and he was up, watching her hands, while his own short tail flickered three or four times in invitation.
But it was no good: the ball was crumpled up and thrown on to the red logs. There was a "whup" from the fire and a flame shot up. He looked at this carefully with his head on one side, and again lay down to watch it. His mistress was standing quite still, watching it with him.
Then, as the flame died down, she turned abruptly, went straight back to the bed, got into it, drew the clothes over her and blew the candle out.
After a few moments steady staring at the fire, he perceived that a part of the ball of paper had rolled out on to the stone hearth unburned. He looked at it for some while, wondering whether it was worth getting up for. Certainly the warmth was delicious and the sheepskin exquisitely soft.
There was no sound from the bed. A complete and absolute silence had succeeded to all the restlessness.
Finally he concluded that it was impossible to lie there any longer and watch such a crisp little roll of paper still untorn. He got up, stepped delicately on to the wide hearth, and pulled the paper towards him with a little scratching sound. There was a sigh from the bed, and he paused.
Then he lifted it, stepped back to his warm place, lay down, and placing his paws firmly upon the paper, began to tear sc.r.a.ps out of it with his white teeth.
"Oh, _be quiet_!" came the weary voice from the bed.
He paused, considered; then he tore two more pieces. But it did not taste as it should; it was a little sticky, and too stiff. He stood up once more, turned round four times and lay down with a small grunt.
In the morning the maid who swept up the ashes swept up these fragments too. She noticed a wet sc.r.a.p of a picture postcard, with the word "Selby" printed in the corner. Then she threw that piece, too, into the dustpan.
CHAPTER IV
(I)
Mrs. Partington and Gertie had many of those mysterious conversations that such women have, full of "he"s" and "she"s" and nods and becks and allusions and broken sentences, wholly unintelligible to the outsider, yet packed with interest to the talkers. The Major, Mr. Partington (still absent), and Frank were discussed continually and exhaustively; and, so far as the subjects themselves ranged, there was hardly an unimportant detail that did not come under notice, and hardly an important fact that did. Gertie officially pa.s.sed, of course, as Mrs.
Trustcott always.
A couple of mornings after Frank had begun his work at the jam factory, Mrs. Partington, who had stepped round the corner to talk with a friend for an hour or so, returned to find Gertie raging. She raged in her own way; she was as white as a sheet; she uttered ironical and unintelligible sentences, in which Frank"s name appeared repeatedly, and it emerged presently that one of the Mission-ladies had been round minding other folks" business, and that Gertie would thank that lady to keep her airs and her advice to herself.
Now Mrs. Partington knew that Gertie was not the Major"s wife, and Gertie knew that she knew it; and Mrs. Partington knew that Gertie knew that she knew it. Yet, officially, all was perfectly correct; Gertie wore a wedding-ring, and there never was the hint that she had not a right to it. It was impossible, therefore, for Mrs. Partington to observe out loud that she understood perfectly what the Mission-lady had been talking about. She said very little; she pressed her thin lips together and let Gertie alone. The conversations that morning were of the nature of disconnected monologues from Gertie with long silences between.
It was an afternoon of silent storm. The Major was away in the West End somewhere on mysterious affairs; the children were at school, and the two women went about, each knowing what was in the mind of the other, yet each resolved to keep up appearances.
At half-past five o"clock Frank abruptly came in for a cup of tea, and Mrs. Partington gave it him in silence. (Gertie could be heard moving about restlessly overhead.) She made one or two ordinary remarks, watching Frank when he was not looking. But Frank said very little. He sat up to the table; he drank two cups of tea out of the chipped enamel mug, and then he set to work on his kippered herring. At this point Mrs.
Partington left the room, as if casually, and a minute later Gertie came downstairs.