"Captain Harewood. He promised to come and tell us how Lance and Felix are."
"I am very glad; but Wilmet never said so."
"No, but-- O Cherry, I wish we could contrive some nice quiet place, but nothing is ever quiet in this house."
"No," said Geraldine, who was but too well aware of the fact, "though I can"t imagine that any Harewood can be distressed on that score."
"Oh, but--" said Robina, to whom the communication began to feel so momentous, that she could not help toying round it before coming to the point--"I know; at least, I am sure he will want to see her particularly."
"You Robin, what have you got into your head?" said Cherry, trying to misunderstand, but feeling a foreboding throb of consternation.
"It is not my head. Willie told me." And as she detected a sigh of relief, "And it is no nonsense of his either. He did it on Sunday evening by the river-side."
"He did it?" repeated Geraldine, willing to take a moment"s refuge in the confusion of antecedents, though too well aware what must be coming.
"You know what I mean. He--Jack--John--Captain Harewood, had it out with her when we were all walking together."
"My dear, impossible!"
"I mean, we were out of hearing, but we saw them at it, and walked up and down till Lance got tired out, and Willie and I stayed to make it proper."
Geraldine relieved herself by a little laugh, and said, in a superior tone of elderly wisdom, "But, my dear, there might be a walk even without what you call doing it."
"Yes," reiterated Robina; "but I know, for the Captain shut himself up with Mr. Harewood when we came in, and Bill heard his father telling his mother about it at night through the wall."
"For shame, Robin!"
"Oh! he told them long ago that he could hear, and they don"t care; besides, Mrs. Harewood told him _himself_ when he went in to wish her good morning, and she kissed me and Lance too about it, and said they hadn"t their equals. And poor Mettie thinks no one knows of it but their two selves, and maybe Mr. Harewood!"
"But, Robin, I don"t know how to understand it. I think she would have told Alda, at least."
"Perhaps she has to-night," said Robina; "but, you see, she didn"t accept him."
"Oh! then it doesn"t signify."
"Not out and out, I mean; and it is only because of us. At least, we are sure she likes him."
"We! You and Willie!"
"And Lance. He saw it all the time he was getting well. Besides, the Captain told his father that she wouldn"t listen to him, and would have hindered his going to Felix if Lance had been fit to travel alone."
"Then it is not an engagement now?"
"No, she won"t let it be."
"And he is coming to-day?"
"Yes, after he has seen Felix. O Cherry! he is so nice, kind and bright, like all the Harewoods, and not ridiculous; and Lance does like him so!"
"Does Wilmet?"
"We are almost sure. As Lance says, she has never looked so bright, or so sweet, or so pretty. Do you think it is love, Cherry?"
"We shall see," said Cherry. "If she tells us nothing, we can judge; and if--if--"
Her voice died away into contemplation; and after waiting in vain for more, Robina somewhat resentfully decided that "she had fallen asleep in her very face."
No more was said till dressing-time, when there were a few speculations whether Alda knew; and Cherry could not help auguring that something had opened Wilmet"s eyes to her twin"s possible deficiencies. Sister Constance came, and seeing her patient"s paleness, accused the sisters of untimely bedroom colloquies; and as they pleaded guilty, Robin was struck by the air of fixed resolution on Cherry"s thin white face.
There was no sign of any confidence having been made to Alda. Wilmet plunged into her long-deferred holiday task of inspecting the family linen; and when she came back with a deep basket, an announcement that every one must mend and adapt, and portions of darning and piecing for Geraldine and Robina, they began to feel as if the morning"s conversation was a dream.
But just as dinner was near its close, there were steps on the stairs; the drawing-room door was opened and shut, and Sibby, unnecessarily coming through the folding leaves, announced over the head of Clement, "Captain Harewood."
"Come to tell about Lance!" cried Angela, leaping up, and followed by Bernard, Alda, and even Mr. Froggatt; indeed, in the existing connection of chairs, tables, and doors, a clearance of that side of the table was needful before any one else could stir. Wilmet moved after them, and Clement was heard exclaiming, "You are pinning me down, Bobbie!"
"I know! Oh, shut the door! There are more than enough there already."
"True," said Sister Constance, signing to Clement to obey. "I meant to go to my room, but Cherry wants to hear of her brothers."
"No, she doesn"t!" cried Robina. "At least-- Oh! will n.o.body get the others out, and leave them to themselves!"
"Why, Bobbie, what nonsense is this?" said Clement. "One would think you took them for Ferdinand and Alda."
"It is all the same!--Stella, you run out to the garden--by that door, you child!" And then it all came out to the two fresh auditors, who listened with conviction. "And now," concluded Robina, "there is not a place where he can so much as speak to her! What shall we do to get them away?"
"You do not know yet that she wishes it," said Sister Constance, who had been a wife before she was a Sister, and saw that it was matronly tact and tenderness that the crisis needed; "but I"ll tell you what you can safely and naturally do. Go in and fetch Cherry"s folding chair, and call the children to carry her appurtenances down to the garden. That will make a break, and Wilmet can take advantage of it if she sees fit."
"Alda is worse than ten children," said Clement; "she has an inordinate appet.i.te for captains in the absence of her own."
"It can"t be helped. Better do too little than too much."
And finding Robina shy and giggling, and Clement shy and irresolute, Sister Constance herself made the diversion by opening the door, when Wilmet"s nervous look and manner was confirmation strong. "Lady Herbert Somerville--Captain Harewood," was Alda"s formal introduction in her bad taste; while the Sister, after shaking hands, bade Bernard take Geraldine"s chair to the lawn.
"Oh, are we to go out?" said Alda. "A good move. Of all things I detest in summer, a town house is the worst. I"ll just fetch a hat, I want to show my pet view.--Our brothers are always fighting about their churches, Captain Harewood."
The thing was done; Mr. Froggatt was already gone, and as Alda"s trappings were never quickly adjusted, it needed very little contrivance to leave a not unwilling pair on one side of the doors, and cut off the rest. Robina, too much excited to stand still, flew about the stairs till Alda appeared in a tiny hat fluttering with velvet tails.
"Are they gone out?"
"Yes;" for quite enough to const.i.tute a "they" were gone; and when Alda reached them, they sedulously set themselves to detain her, and thereby betrayed the reason.
"Nonsense! How absurd! That horrid little fright of a red-haired man!
No doubt poor dear Wilmet only wants me to go and put an end to it."
Strictly speaking, this was self-a.s.sertion. She had not the a.s.surance to intrude, and she contented herself with keeping Cherry on thorns by threatening to go in, and declaring that the whole must be untrue, since Wilmet had not told her.
Time went on very slowly; and at last Wilmet, about four o"clock, was seen advancing, with Theodore in one hand and her great basket of mending in the other. And before Alda had time to rise from her chair, Robina darted across the gra.s.s, with flaming cheeks and low, hurried, frightened confession--"Wilmet, please, it is honest to tell you; Willie Harewood knows, and told me, and I couldn"t help it; I told them to keep away."
"It always happens so," said Wilmet, less discomposed than Robina expected, though she had evidently been shedding tears. "Not that there is anything to tell."