It was in her estimation quite a rare, delicious, and novel species of fun. To one whose monotonous life was spent underground, with a prospect of bricks at two feet from her window, and in company with pots, pans, potato-peelings, and black-beetles, it was as good as a scene in a play.
The next visitor was the butcher"s boy, who came round to take "orders"
for the following day. This boy had a tendency to chaff.
"Well, my lady, has your ladyship any orders?"
"Nothink to-day," answered the domestic, curtly.
"What! Nothink at all? Goin" to fast to-morrow, eh? Or to live on stooed hatmospheric hair with your own sauce for gravey--hey?"
"No, we doesn"t want nothink," repeated the domestic, stoutly. "Missus said so, an" she bid me ask you if you"d like a cup of tea?"
The butcher"s boy opened his mouth and eyes in amazement. To have his own weapons thus turned, as he thought, against him by one who was usually rather soft and somewhat shy of him, took him quite aback. He recovered, however, quickly, and made a rush at the girl, who, as before, attempted to shut the door with a bang, but the boy was too sharp for her. His foot prevented her succeeding, and there is no doubt that in another moment he would have forcibly entered the house, if he had not been seized from behind by the collar in the powerful grasp of Edgar Berrington, who sent him staggering into the street. The boy did not wait for more. With a wild-Indian war-whoop he turned and fled.
Excited, and, to some extent, exasperated by this last visit, the small domestic received Edgar with a one-third timid, one-third gleeful, and one-third reckless spirit.
"What did the boy mean?" asked Edgar, as he turned towards her.
"Please, sir, "e wouldn"t "ave a cup of tea, sir," she replied meekly, then, with a gleam of hope in her eyes--"Will _you_ "ave one, sir?"
"You"re a curious creature," answered Edgar, with a smile. "Is Miss Pritty at home?"
"No, sir, she ain"t."
This answer appeared to surprise and annoy him.
"Very odd," he said, with a little frown. "Did she not expect me?"
"No, sir, I think she didn"t. Leastways she didn"t say as she did, but she was very partikler in tellin" me to be sure to hoffer you a cup of tea."
Edgar looked at the small domestic, and, as he looked, his mouth expanded. _Her_ mouth followed suit, and they both burst into a fit of laughter. After a moment or two the former recovered.
"This is all very pleasant, no doubt," he said, "but it is uncommonly awkward. Did she say when she would be home?"
"No, sir, she didn"t, but she bid me say if any one wanted her, that they"d find her at Sea Cottage."
"At Sea Cottage--who lives there?"
"I don"t know, sir."
"Where is it?"
"On the sea-sh.o.r.e, sir."
"Which way--_this_ way or _that_ way?" asked Edgar, pointing right and left.
"_That_ way," answered the girl, pointing left.
The impatient youth turned hastily to leave.
"Please, sir--" said the domestic.
"Well," said Edgar, stopping.
"You"re sure, sir--" she stopped.
"Well?--go on."
"That you wouldn"t like to "ave a cup of tea?"
"Child," said Edgar, as he turned finally away, "you"re mad--as mad as a March hare."
"Thank you, sir."
The small domestic shut the door and retired to the regions below, where, taking the pots and pans and black-beetles into her confidence, she shrieked with delight for full ten minutes, and hugged herself.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
A CLIMAX IS REACHED.
When Edgar Berrington discovered the cottage by the sea, and ascertained that Miss Pritty was within, he gave his name, and was ushered into the snug little room under the name of Mr Briggington. Aileen gave a particularly minute, but irrepressible and quite inaudible scream; Mr Hazlit sat bolt up in his chair, as if he had seen a ghost; and Miss Pritty--feeling, somehow, that her diplomacy had not become a brilliant success--shrank within herself, and wished it were to-morrow.
Their various expressions, however, were as nothing compared with Edgar"s blazing surprise.
"Mr Hazlit," he stammered, "pray pardon my sudden intrusion at so unseasonable an hour; but, really, I was not aware that--did you not get my telegram, aunt?"
He turned abruptly to Miss Pritty.
"Why ye-es, but I thought that you--in fact--I could not imagine that--"
"Never mind explanations just now," said Mr Hazlit, recovering himself, and rising with a bland smile, "you are welcome, Mr Berrington; no hour is unseasonable for one to whom we owe so much."
They shook hands and laughed; then Edgar shook hands with Aileen and blushed, no doubt because _she_ blushed, then he saluted his aunt, and took refuge in being very particular about her receipt of the telegram.
This threw Miss Pritty into a state of unutterable confusion, because of her efforts to tell the truth and conceal the truth at one and the same time. After this they spent a very happy evening together, during the course of which Mr Hazlit took occasion to ask Edgar to accompany him into a little pigeon-hole of a room which, in deference to a few books that dwelt there, was styled the library.
"Mr Berrington," he said, sitting down and pointing to a chair, "be seated. I wish to have a little private conversation with you. We are both practical men, and know the importance of thoroughly understanding each other. When I saw you last--now about two years ago--you indicated some disposition to--to regard--in fact to pay your addresses to my daughter. At that time I objected to you on the ground that you were penniless. Whether right or wrong in that objection is now a matter of no importance, because it turns out that I was right on other grounds, as I now find that you did not know your own feelings, and did not care for her--"
"Did not _care_ for her?" interrupted Edgar, in sudden amazement, not unmingled with indignation.
"Of course," continued Mr Hazlit, with undisturbed calmness, "I mean that you did not care for her sufficiently; that you did not regard her with that unconquerable affection which is usually styled `love", and without which no union can be a happy one. The proof to me that your feeling towards her was evanescent, lies in the fact that you have taken no notice either of her or of me for two years. Had you gained my daughter"s affections, this might have caused me deep regret, but as she has seldom mentioned your name since we last saw you, save when I happened to refer to you, I perceive that her heart has been untouched-- for which I feel exceedingly thankful, knowing as I do, only too well, that we cannot command our affections."
Mr Hazlit paused a moment, and Edgar was so thunderstruck by the unexpected nature of his host"s discourse, that he could only stare at him in mute surprise and unbelief in the evidence of his own ears.
"Now," resumed Mr Hazlit, "as things stand, I shall be very happy indeed that we should return to our old intimacy. I can never forget the debt of obligation we owe to you as our rescuer from worse than death--from slavery among brutalised men, and I shall be very happy indeed that you should make my little cottage by the sea--as Aileen loves to style it--your abode whenever business or pleasure call you to this part of the country."
The merchant extended his hand with a smile of genuine urbanity. The youth took it, mechanically shook it, let it fall, and continued to stare in a manner that made Mr Hazlit feel quite uneasy. Suddenly he recovered, and, looking the latter earnestly in the face, said:--