"Never, Mignonette--while I could work for you. How do you expect to manage when you are my wife?--And do you think I had no right even to _know_ about it?"
"I thought--now was the best time--" Faith said.
"Am I to learn from this and similar instances what my wife will expect of me if I chance to be sick or in trouble?"
It touched her. She coloured again to the roots of her hair.
"Do you think I did wrong, Endy?" she said doubtfully, yet in an appealing fashion.
"I cannot say you did right."
"But when you could do me no good,"--said Faith very gently,--"and I should only have given you pain--for nothing?"
"It would not have given me pain to have you tell it--and the thing does now. Besides, in a great many cases the thought that it is pain "for nothing" is a mistake. I might know some remedy when you did not.
Self sacrifice will never run wild in my nature--as it is inclined to do in yours, but just imagine it once in the ascendant and me with a bad headache (which I never have),--it can only give you pain to hear of it--so I tell you of it the next day. But if I had told you at the time--what conjurations of your little fingers! what quick-witted alleviations!--till the headache becomes almost a pleasure to both of us."
Faith was very near the unwonted demonstration of tears. She stood still, looking down, till she could look up safely.
"I will not do so again, Endy.--About important things, I mean,"
"You know, Faith, I am speaking less of this one case, than of the daily course of future action. Is not perfect frankness, as well as perfect truth, best? And if I call for your sympathy in all manner of small and great things, will you let mine lie idle?"
"I might like it,"--said Faith honestly. "But in great things I will not again, Endecott."
"Take care you get the right measure for things," said Mr. Linden smiling. "Frankness makes a deliciously plain way for one"s feet."
Faith looked sober again, at the idea that she should have failed in frankness. Then put her hand in his and looked smiling up at him.
"There is one thing I will not keep from you any longer,"--she said.
"What is that?--the seal of this little compact of plain speaking?"
"Strawberries!"--
"Only another style of nomenclature,"--said Mr. Linden.
"You must take the trouble to go into the other room for them."
And light-heartedly Faith preceded him into the other room, where the dinner was ready. A very simple dinner, but Mrs. Derrick would not have had anything less than a roast chicken for Mr. Linden, and the lettuce and potatoes did very well for a summer day; and Faith"s waiting on table made it only more pleasant. Talk flowed all the while; of a thousand and one things; for Mrs. Derrick"s sympathies had a wider range since Mr. Linden had been in Germany. Indeed the talk was princ.i.p.ally between those two. It was a remarkably long dinner, without multiplication of courses--there was so much to say! Many were the pleasant things swallowed with the strawberries. It is said hunger is the best sauce; it"s not true; happiness is a better.
And then--what came then? Truly, the same over again--looking and talking, without the strawberries. Which were not wanted; especially when Faith was dressed out with roses, as she was presently after dinner. As she _would_ wash the tumblers and spoons in the dining-room, spite of all Mrs. Derrick could say, so Mr. Linden would stay there too; not indeed to do anything but look on, and bestow the roses as aforesaid. Talking to her sometimes in English, sometimes in French, with preliminary instructions in German.
"Mignonette," he said, "I have three letters for you to read."
"Letters, Endecott!--Who has written to me?"
"Through me--three regions of country."
"What do you mean?"
Just as she spoke the words, Faith paused and set down the tumbler she was wiping. Her ears had caught the sound of a modest knock at the front door. She looked at Mr. Linden.
"Stay here, Endy--please!" she said as she threw down her towel and ran off. But Faith"s hope of a chance was disappointed. She ushered somebody into the sitting-room and came back gravely and flushed to Mr.
Linden.
"It"s Mr. Somers--and he wants to see you, Endecott!"
Faith went at her tumblers, and simultaneously, greatly to the dismay of one party as to the surprise of the other, in walked Mr. Somers after her.
"Miss Derrick told me you were in this room, sir," said the clergyman shaking Mr. Linden"s hand,--"so I came in. Ha! I am glad to be one of the first to welcome you back. How do you do, Mr. Linden? You"ve been a great while from Pattaqua.s.set!--and you"ve been missed, I don"t doubt."
Apparently not by Mr. Somers! But Mr. Linden met all the advances as he should, merely stating his belief in the general proposition that "there is always somebody to miss everybody."
"Will you take a seat here, sir?" he said--"or may I go with you to the next room?"
"I--have no choice," said Mr. Somers looking benignantly around;--"it is very pleasant here, very!--cool;--perhaps Miss Derrick will have no objection to our taking our seats here?"
Faith did not say, but as Mr. Somers had taken her leave for granted, and his seat consequently, she was saved that trouble. How she reddened at the thought of the roses with which she was dressed! And there she stood in full view, washing her spoons! But Mr. Somers looked the other way.
"I--I am very happy to see you again, Mr. Linden--very happy indeed, sir! I heard from Squire Stoutenburgh that you were expected, and I lost no time. How have you enjoyed your health, sir, this year? A year"s a long time! isn"t it?"
Mr. Linden, taking his seat as in duty bound, looked abstractedly at Faith and the spoons and the roses, and answered according to the evidence.
"Yes, Mr. Somers,--and yet it depends very much upon how far the two ends of the year are apart in other respects. The "Voyage autour de ma chambre" could never _seem_ very long, whatever time it took."
"Ha!"--said Mr. Somers blandly,--he hadn"t the remotest idea what this speech might mean,--"no. Did you have a good pa.s.sage coming over? We had every sign of it."
"Very good,"--said Mr. Linden smiling,--"and very stormy."
"Ah?"--said Mr. Somers,--"very good and very stormy? Well I shouldn"t have thought that. But I suppose you have got to be such a traveller that you don"t mind which way the wind blows, if it blows you on, ha?--like Dr. Harrison. _He_ never minds the weather. Dr. Harrison"s a great loss to Pattaqua.s.set too," said Mr. Somers looking at Faith and smiling a little more openly;--"all our--ha!--our pleasantest members of society seem to be running away from us! That"s what Mrs. Somers says."
"One more spoon--and put them up,"--thought Faith,--"and then I"ll be away!"--
"But I"ve come to see if I can"t get you to do me a favour, Mr.
Linden," said Mr. Somers withdrawing his eyes and mind from her.
"I--should be very much obliged to you indeed! I"m almost afraid to ask, for fear I sha"n"t get it."
Faith wiped her spoon slowly.
"I like to do favours," said Mr. Linden,--"at least I think I should.
But I cannot imagine how you can give me a chance, Mr. Somers."
"Don"t you think it would be a great gratification to all your old friends in Pattaqua.s.set, if you would consent to fill my pulpit next Sunday? They--I believe they"d come from all over the country!--and it would be--a--it would be a very great gratification indeed to me. Can"t I prevail with you?"
Faith had ceased her work and was standing quite still, with bended head, and cheeks which had gathered their colour into two vivid spots.
On those carnations Mr. Linden"s eyes rested for a moment, with a strange feeling of pleasure, of emotion. The sort of touched smile upon his lips when he spoke, did not, it may be said, belong to Mr. Somers.
His answer was very simple and straightforward.