XVIII
Bad luck, it will be seen, dogged the footsteps of Priscilla. Never indeed for a single hour after she entered Creeper Cottage did the gloomy lady cease from her attentions. The place was pervaded by her thick and evil atmosphere. Fritzing could not go out for an airing without something of far-reaching consequence happening while he was away. It was of course Bad Luck that made the one girl in Symford who was easily swayed by pa.s.sing winds of temptation draw the lot that put the five-pound note into her hands; if she had come to the cottage just one day later, or if the rain had gone on just half an hour longer and kept Fritzing indoors, she would, I have no doubt whatever, be still in Symford practising every feeble virtue either on her father or on her John, by this time probably her very own John. As it was she was a thief, a lost soul, a banished face for ever from the ways of grace.
Thus are we all the sport of circ.u.mstance. Thus was all Symford the sport of Priscilla. Fritzing knew nothing of his loss. He had not told Priscilla a word of his money difficulties, his idea being to keep every cloud from her life as long and as completely as possible.
Besides, how idle to talk of these things to some one who could in no way help him with counsel or suggestions. He had put the money in his drawer, and the thought that it was still unchanged and safe comforted him a little in the watches of the sleepless nights.
Nothing particular happened on the Thursday morning, except that the second of the twenty-five kept on breaking things, and Priscilla who was helping Fritzing arrange the books he had ordered from London remarked at the fifth terrific smash, a smash so terrific as to cause Creeper Cottage to tremble all over, that more crockery had better be bought.
"Yes," said Fritzing, glancing swiftly at her with almost a guilty glance.
He felt very keenly his want of resourcefulness in this matter of getting the money over from Germany, but he clung to the hope that a few more wakeful nights would clear his brain and show him the way; and meanwhile there was always the five-pound note in the drawer.
"And Fritzi, I shall have to get some clothes soon," Priscilla went on, dusting the books as he handed them to her.
"Clothes, ma"am?" repeated Fritzing, straightening himself to stare at her.
"Those things you bought for me in Gerstein--they"re delicious, they"re curiosities, but they"re not clothes. I mean always to keep them. I"ll have them put in a gla.s.s case, and they shall always be near me when we"re happy again."
"Happy again, ma"am?"
"Settled again, I mean," quickly amended Priscilla.
She dusted in silence for a little, and began to put the books she had dusted in the shelves. "I"d better write to Paris," she said presently.
Fritzing jumped. "Paris, ma"am?"
"They"ve got my measurements. This dress can"t stand much more. It"s the one I"ve worn all the time. The soaking it got yesterday was very bad for it. You don"t see such things, but if you did you"d probably get a tremendous shock."
"Ma"am, if you write to Paris you must give your own name, which of course is impossible. They will send nothing to an unknown customer in England called Neumann-Schultz."
"Oh but we"d send the money with the order. That"s quite easy, isn"t it?"
"Perfectly easy," said Fritzing in an oddly exasperated voice; at once adding, still more snappily, "Might I request your Grand Ducal Highness to have the goodness not to put my aeschylus--a most valuable edition--head downwards on the shelf? It is a manner of treating books often to be observed in housemaids and similar ignorants. But you, ma"am, have been trained by me I trust in other and more reverent ways of handling what is left to us of the mighty spirits of the past."
"I"m sorry," said Priscilla, hastily turning the aeschylus right side up again; and by launching forth into a long and extremely bitter dissertation on the various ways persons of no intellectual conscience have of ill-treating books, he got rid of some of his agitation and fixed her attention for the time on questions less fraught with complications than clothes from Paris.
About half-past two they were still sitting over the eggs and bread and b.u.t.ter that Priscilla ordered three times a day and that Fritzing ate with unquestioning obedience, when the Shuttleworth victoria stopped in front of the cottage and Lady Shuttleworth got out.
Fritzing, polite man, hastened to meet her, pushing aside the footman and offering his arm. She looked at him vaguely, and asked if his niece were at home.
"Certainly," said Fritzing, leading her into Priscilla"s parlour.
"Shall I inquire if she will receive you?"
"Do," said Lady Shuttleworth, taking no apparent notice of the odd wording of this question. "Tussie isn"t well," she said the moment Priscilla appeared, fixing her eyes on her face but looking as though she hardly saw her, as though she saw past her, through her, to something beyond, while she said a lesson learned by rote.
"Isn"t he? Oh I"m sorry," said Priscilla.
"He caught cold last Sunday at your treat. He oughtn"t to have run those races with the boys. He can"t--stand--much."
Priscilla looked at her questioningly. The old lady"s face was quite set and calm, but there had been a queer catch in her voice at the last words.
"Why does he do such things, then?" asked Priscilla, feeling vaguely distressed.
"Ah yes, my dear--why? That is a question for you to answer, is it not?"
"For me?"
"On Tuesday night," continued Lady Shuttleworth, "he was ill when he left home to come here. He would come. It was a terrible night for a delicate boy to go out. And he didn"t stay here, I understand. He went out to buy something after closing time, and stood a long while trying to wake the people up."
"Yes," said Priscilla, feeling guilty, "I--that was my fault. He went for me."
"Yes my dear. Since then he has been ill. I"ve come to ask you if you"ll drive back with me and see if--if you cannot persuade him that you are happy. He seems to be much--troubled."
"Troubled?"
"He seems to be afraid you are not happy. You know," she added with a little quavering smile, "Tussie is very kind. He is very unselfish. He takes everybody"s burdens on his shoulders. He seems to be quite haunted by the idea that your life here is unendurably uncomfortable, and it worries him dreadfully that he can"t get to you to set things straight. I think if he were to see you, and you were very cheerful, and--and smiled, my dear, it might help to get him over this."
"Get him over this?" echoed Priscilla. "Is he so ill?"
Lady Shuttleworth looked at her and said nothing.
"Of course I"ll come," said Priscilla, hastily ringing the bell.
"But you must not look unhappy," said Lady Shuttleworth, laying her hand on the girl"s arm, "that would make matters ten times worse. You must promise to be as gay as possible."
"Yes, yes--I"ll be gay," promised Priscilla, while her heart became as lead within her at the thought that she was the cause of poor Tussie"s sufferings. But was she really, she asked herself during the drive?
What had she done but accept help eagerly offered? Surely it was very innocent to do that? It was what she had been doing all her life, and people had been delighted when she let them be kind to her, and certainly had not got ill immediately afterwards. Were you never to let anybody do anything for you lest while they were doing it they should get wet feet and things, and then their colds would be upon your head? She was very sorry Tussie should be ill, dreadfully sorry.
He was so kind and good that it was impossible not to like him. She did like him. She liked him quite as well as most young men and much better than many. "I"m afraid you are very unhappy," she said suddenly to Lady Shuttleworth, struck by the look on her face as she leaned back, silent, in her corner.
"I do feel rather at my wits" end," said Lady Shuttleworth. "For instance, I"m wondering whether what I"m doing now isn"t a great mistake."
"What you are doing now?"
"Taking you to see Tussie."
"Oh but I promise to be cheerful. I"ll tell him how comfortable we are. He"ll see I look well taken care of."
"But for all that I"m afraid he may--he may--"
"Why, we"re going to be tremendously taken care of. Even he will see that. Only think--I"ve engaged twenty-five cooks."
"Twenty-five cooks?" echoed Lady Shuttleworth, staring in spite of her sorrows. "But isn"t my kitchenmaid--?"
"Oh she left us almost at once. She couldn"t stand my uncle. He is rather difficult to stand at first. You have to know him quite a long while before you can begin to like him. And I don"t think kitchenmaids ever would begin."
"But my dear, twenty-five cooks?"
And Priscilla explained how and why she had come by them; and though Lady Shuttleworth, remembering the order till now prevailing in the village and the lowness of the wages, could not help thinking that here was a girl more potent for mischief than any girl she had ever met, yet a feeble gleam of amus.e.m.e.nt did, as she listened, slant across the inky blackness of her soul.