But Miss Milton was an old general.
"Oh, that"s out, I"m afraid. Now, here"s a sweetly pretty book--_Roger Varibrugh"s Wife_, by Adeline Sergeant. It"a only just out...."
"Or there"s _The Sowers,"_ said Joan, caught against her will by the red-rimmed eyes and staring at them.
"Oh, that"s out, I"m afraid. There are several books here--"
"You promised mother," said Joan, "that she should have _Sentimental Tommy_ this week. You promised her a month ago. It"s about time that mother had a book that she cares for."
"Really," said Miss Milton, wide-eyed at Joan"s audacity. "You seem to be charging me with some remissness, Miss Brandon. If you have any complaint, I"m sure the Library Committee will attend to it. It"s to them I have to answer. When the book is in you shall have it. I can promise no more. I am only human."
"You have said that now for three months," said Joan, beginning, to her own surprised delight, to be angry. "Surely the last reader hasn"t been three months over it. I thought subscribers were only allowed to keep a book a week."
Miss Milton"s crimson colouring turned to a deep purple.
"The book is out," she said. "Both books are out. They are in great demand. I have no more to say."
The Library door opened, and a young man came in. Joan was still too young to wish for scenes in public. She must give up the battle for to-day.
When, however, she saw who it was she blushed. It was young Lord St. Leath --Johnny St. Leath, as he was known to his familiars, who were many and of all sorts and conditions. Joan hated herself for blushing, especially before the odious Miss Milton, but there was a reason. One day in last October after morning service Joan and her mother had waited in the Cloisters to avoid a shower of rain. St. Leath had also waited and very pleasantly had talked to them both. There was nothing very alarming in this, but as the rain cleared and Mrs. Brandon had moved forward across the Green, he had suddenly, with a confusion that had seemed to her charming, asked Joan whether one day they mightn"t meet again. He had given her one look straight in the eyes, tried to say something more, failed, and turned away down the Cloisters.
Joan had never before been asked by any young man to meet him again. She had told herself that this was nothing but the merest, most obvious politeness; nevertheless the look that he had given her remained.
Now, as she saw him advancing towards her, there was the thought, was it not on that very morning that her new courage and self-confidence had come to her? The thought was so absurd that she flung it at Miss Milton. But the blush remained.
Johnny was an ungainly young man, with a red face, freckles, a large mouth, and a bull-terrier--a conventional British type, I suppose, saved, nevertheless, from conventionality by his affection for his three plain sisters, his determination to see things as they were, and his sense of humour, the last of these something quite his own, and always appearing in unexpected places. The bull-terrier, in spite of the notice on the Library door that no dogs were admitted, advanced breathlessly and dribbling with excitement for Miss Milton"s large black felt slippers.
"Here, Andrew, old man. Heel! Heel!" said Johnny. Andrew, however, quite naturally concluded that this was only an approval of his intentions, and there might have followed an awkward scene had his master not caught him by the collar and held him suspended in mid-air, to his own indignant surprise and astonishment.
Joan laughed, and Miss Milton, quivering between indignation, fear and sn.o.bbery, dropped the stocking that she was knitting.
Andrew burst from his master"s clutches, rushed the stocking into the farthest recesses of the Library, and proceeded there to enjoy it.
Johnny apologised.
"Oh, it"s quite all right, Lord St. Leath," said Miss Milton. "What a fine animal!"
"Yes, he is," said Johnny, rescuing the stocking. "He"s as strong as Lucifer. Here, Andrew, you devil, I"ll break every bone in your body."
During this little scene Johnny had smiled at Joan, and in so pleasant a way that she was compelled to smile back at him.
"How do you do, Miss Brandon?" He had recalled Andrew now, and the dog was s...o...b..ring happily at his feet. "Jolly day, isn"t it?"
"Yes," said Joan, and stood there awkwardly, feeling that she ought to go but not knowing quite how to do so. He also seemed embarra.s.sed, and turned abruptly to Miss Milton.
"I say, look here.... Mother asked me to come in and get that book you promised her. What"s the name of the thing?...I"ve got it written down."
He fumbled in his pocket and produced a bit of paper.
"Here it is. _Sentimental Tommy_, by a man called Barrie. Silly name, but mother"s always reading the most awful stuff."
Joan turned towards Miss Milton.
"How funny!" she said. "That"s the book I"ve just been asking for. It"s out."
Miss Milton"s face was a curious purple.
"Well, that"s odd," said Johnny. "Mother told me that you"d sent her a line to say it was in whenever she sent for it."
"It"s been out three months," said Joan, staring now straight into Miss Milton"s angry eyes.
"I"ve been keeping..." said Miss Milton. "That is, there"s a special copy.... Lady St. Leath specially asked----"
"Is it in, or isn"t it?" asked Johnny.
"There _is_ a copy, Lord St. Leath----" With confused fingers Miss Milton searched in a drawer. She produced the book.
"You told me," said Joan, forgetting now in her anger St. Leath and all the world, "that there wouldn"t he a copy for weeks. If you"d told me you were keeping one for St. Leath, that would have been different. You shouldn"t have told me a lie."
"Do you mean to say," said Johnny, opening his eyes very widely indeed, "that you refused this copy to Miss Brandon?"
"Certainly," said Miss Milton, breathing very hard as though she had been running a long distance. "I was keeping it for your mother."
"Well, I"m d.a.m.ned," said Johnny. "I beg your pardon, Miss Brandon,...but I never heard such a thing. Does my mother pay a larger subscription than other people?"
"Certainly not."
"Then what right had you to tell Miss Brandon a lie?"
Miss Milton, in spite of long training in the kind of warfare attaching, of necessity, to Circulating Libraries, was very near to tears--also murder. She would have been delighted to pierce Joan"s heart with a bright stiletto, had such a weapon been handy. She saw the softest, easiest, idlest job in the world slipping out of her fingers; she saw herself, a desolate and haggard virgin, begging her bread on the Polchester streets.
She saw...but never mind her visions. They were terrible ones. She had recourse to her only defence.
"If I have misunderstood my duty," she said in a trembling voice, "there is the Library Committee."
"Oh, never mind," said Joan whose anger had disappeared. "It doesn"t matter a bit. We"ll have the book after Lady St. Leath."
"Indeed you won"t," said Johnny, seizing the volume and forcing it upon Joan. "Mother can wait. I never heard of such a thing." He turned fiercely upon Miss Milton. "My mother shall know exactly what has happened. I"m sure she"d be horrified if she understood that you were keeping books from other subscribers in order that she might have them.... Good afternoon."
He strode from the room. At the door he paused.
"Can I--Shall we--Are you going down the High Street, Miss Brandon?"
"Yes," said Joan. They went out of the room and down the Library steps together.
In the shiny, sunny street they paused. The dark cobwebs of the Library hung behind Joan"s consciousness like the sudden breaking of a mischievous spell.
She was so happy that she could have embraced Andrew, who was, however, already occupied with the distant aura of a white poodle on the other side of the street.
Johnny was driven by the impulse of his indignation down the hill. Joan, rather breathlessly, followed him.