Rachel laughed. "You flatter me."
"I never flatter any one. He does like you, and, besides, there are people coming next week for the grouse-shooting. I suppose that heavy young Vernon is going to lumber over with you. It"s not my fault if he is always running after you. Edward insisted on having him. I don"t want him to dance attendance on _me_."
"He and I are going to bicycle to Warpington together. The Gresleys are cousins of his. If it turns very hot we will wait till after sunset to return, if we may."
"Just as you like," said Lady Newhaven with asperity. "But I advise you to be careful, my dear Rachel. It never seems to occur to you what on-lookers see at a glance, namely, that Mr. Vernon is in love with your fortune."
"According to public opinion that is a very praiseworthy attachment,"
said Rachel, who had had about enough. "I often hear it commended."
Lady Newhaven stared. That her conversation could have the effect of a mustard leaf did not strike her. She saw that Rachel was becoming restive, and, of course, the reason was obvious. She was thinking of marrying d.i.c.k.
"Well, my dear," she said, lying down on a low couch near the latticed window, and opening a novel, "you need not be vexed with me for trying to save you from a mercenary marriage. I only speak because I am fond of you. But one marriage is as good as another. I was married for love myself; I had not a farthing. And yet you see my marriage has turned out a tragedy--a bitter, bitter tragedy."
_Tableau_.--A beautiful, sad-faced young married woman in white, reclining among pale-green cushions near a bowl of pink carnations, endeavoring to rouse the higher feelings of an inexperienced though not youthful spinster in a short bicycling skirt. Decidedly, the picture was not flattering to Rachel.
CHAPTER XVII
"On s"ennuie presque toujours avec ceux qu"on ennuie."
Hester did not fail a second time to warn the Gresleys of the arrival of guests. She mentioned it in time to allow of the making of cakes, and Mr. Gresley graciously signified his intention of returning early from his parochial rounds on the afternoon when d.i.c.k and Rachel were expected, while Mrs. Gresley announced that the occasion was a propitious one for inviting the Pratts to tea.
"Miss West will like to meet them," she remarked to Hester, whose jaw dropped at the name of Pratt. "And it is very likely if they take a fancy to her they will ask her to stay at the Towers while she is in the neighborhood. If the captain is at home I will ask him to come too. The Pratts are always so pleasant and hospitable."
Hester was momentarily disconcerted at the magnitude of the social effort which Rachel"s coming seemed to entail. But for once she had the presence of mind not to show her dismay, and she helped Mrs. Gresley to change the crewel-work antimaca.s.sars, with their washed-out kittens swinging and playing leap-frog, for the best tussore-silk ones.
The afternoon was still young when all the preparations had been completed, and Mrs. Gresley went up-stairs to change her gown, while Hester took charge of the children, as Fraulein had many days previously arranged to make music with Dr. and Miss Brown on this particular afternoon. And very good music it was which proceeded out of the open windows of the doctor"s red brick house opposite Abel"s cottage. Hester could just hear it from the bottom of the garden near the church-yard wall, and there she took the children, and under the sycamore, with a bench round it, the dolls had a tea-party. Hester had provided herself with a lump of sugar and a biscuit, and out of these many dishes were made, and were arranged on a clean pocket-handkerchief spread on the gra.s.s. Regie carried out his directions as butler with solemn exact.i.tude; and though Mary, who had inherited the paternal sense of humor, thought fit to tweak the handkerchief and upset everything, she found the witticism so coldly received by "Auntie Hester," although she explained that father always did it, that she at once suited herself to her company, and helped to repair the disaster.
It was very hot. The dolls, from the featureless midshipman to the colossal professional beauty sitting in her own costly perambulator (a present from Mrs. Pratt), felt the heat, and showed it by their moist countenances. The only person who was cool was a small, nude, china infant in its zinc bath, the property of Stella, whose determination to reach central facts, and to penetrate to the root of the matter, at present took the form of tearing or licking off all that could be torn or licked from objects of interest. Hester, who had presented her with the floating baby in the bath, sometimes wondered, as she watched Stella conscientiously work through a well-dressed doll down to its st.i.tched sawdust compartments, what Mr. Gresley would make of his daughter when she turned her attention to theology.
They were all sitting in a tight circle round the handkerchief, Regie watching Hester cutting a new supply of plates out of smooth leaves with her little gilt scissors, while Mary and Stella tried alternately to suck an inaccessible grain of sugar out of the bottom of an acorn cup.
Rachel and d.i.c.k had come up on their silent wheels, and were looking at them over the wall before Hester was aware of their presence.
"May we join the tea-party?" asked Rachel, and Hester started violently.
"I am afraid the gate is locked," she said. "But perhaps you can climb it."
"We can"t leave the bicycles outside, though," said d.i.c.k, and he took a good look at the heavy padlocked gate. Then he slowly lifted it off its hinges, wheeled in the bicycles, and replaced the gate in position.
Rachel looked at him.
"Do you always do what you want to do?" she said, involuntarily.
"It saves trouble," he said, "especially as no one can be such a first-cla.s.s fool as to think a padlock will keep a gate shut. He would expect it to be opened."
"But father said no one could come in there now," explained Regie, who had watched, open-mouthed, the upheaval of the gate. "Father said it could not be opened any more. He told mother."
"Did he, my son?" said d.i.c.k, and he kissed every one, beginning with Hester and finishing with the dolls. Then they all sat down to the tea-party, and partook largely of the delicacies, and after tea d.i.c.k solemnly asked the children if they had seen the flying half-penny he had brought back with him from Australia. The children crowded round him, and the half-penny was produced and handed round. Each child touched it, and found it real. Auntie Hester and Auntie Rachel examined it. Boulou was requested to smell it. And then it was laid on the gra.s.s, and the pocket-handkerchief which had done duty as a table-cloth was spread over it.
The migrations of the half-penny were so extraordinary that even Rachel and Hester professed amazement. Once it was found in Rachel"s hand, into which another large hand had gently shut it. But it was never discovered twice in the same place, though all the children rushed religiously to look for it where it was last discovered.
Another time, after a long search, the doll in the bath was discovered to be sitting upon it, and once it actually flew down Regie"s back; and amid the wild excitement of the children its cold descent was described by Regie in piercing minuteness until the moment when it rolled out over his stocking at his knee.
"Make it fly down my back too, Uncle d.i.c.k," shrieked Mary. "Regie, give it to me."
But Regie danced in a circle round d.i.c.k, holding aloft the wonderful half-penny.
"Make it fly down my throat," he cried, too excited to know what he was doing, and he put the half-penny in his mouth.
"Put it out this instant," said d.i.c.k, without moving.
A moment"s pause followed, in which the blood ebbed away from the hearts of the two women.
"I can"t," said Regie; "I"ve swallowed it." And he began to whimper, and then suddenly rolled on the gra.s.s screaming.
d.i.c.k pounced upon him like a panther, and held him by the feet head downward, shaking him violently. The child"s face was terrible to see.
Hester hid her face in her hands. Rachel rose and stood close to d.i.c.k.
"I think the shaking is rather too much for him," she said, watching the poor little purple face intently. "I"m bound to go on," said d.i.c.k, fiercely. "Is it moving, Regie?"
"It"s going down," screamed Regie, suddenly.
"That it"s not," said d.i.c.k, and he shook the child again, and the half-penny flew out upon the gra.s.s. "Thank G.o.d," said d.i.c.k, and he laid the gasping child on Hester"s lap and turned away.
A few minutes later Regie was laughing and talking, and feeling himself a hero. Presently he slipped off Hester"s knee and ran to d.i.c.k, who was lying on the gra.s.s a few paces off, his face hidden in his hands.
"Make the half-penny fly again, Uncle d.i.c.k," cried all the children, pulling at him.
d.i.c.k raised an ashen face for a moment and said, hoa.r.s.ely, "Take them away."
Hester gathered up the children and took them back to the house through the kitchen garden.
"Don"t say we have arrived," whispered Rachel to her. "I will come on with him presently." And she sat down near the prostrate vine-grower.
The president of the South Australian Vine-Growers" a.s.sociation looked very large when he was down.
Presently he sat up. His face was drawn and haggard, but he met Rachel"s dog-like glance of silent sympathy with a difficult, crooked smile.
"He is such a jolly little chap," he said, winking his hawk eyes.
"It was not your fault."
"That would not have made it any better for the parents," said d.i.c.k. "I had time to think of that while I was shaking that little money-box.
Besides, it was my fault, in a way. I"ll never play with other people"s children again. They are too brittle. I"ve had shaves up the Fly River and in the South Sea Islands, but never anything as bad as this, in this blooming little Vicarage garden with a church looking over the wall."