CHAPTER XVII
CONFUSION
Mr. Churchouse was standing in his porch, when a postman brought him a parcel. It was a book, and Ernest displayed mild interest.
"What should that be, I wonder?" he said. Then he asked a question.
"Have you seen Bert, the newspaper boy? For the second morning he disappoints me."
But Bert himself appeared at the same moment and the postman went his way.
"No newspaper on Saturday—how was that?" asked Mr. Churchouse.
"I was dreadful ill and my mother wouldn't let me go outdoors," explained the boy. "I asked Neddy Prichard to go down to the baker's and get it for you; but he wouldn't."
"Then I say no more, except to hope you're better."
"It's my froat," explained Bert, a sturdy, flaxen youngster of ten.
"One more point I should like to raise while you are here. Have you noticed that garden chair in the porch?"
"Yes, I have, and wondered why 'twas left there."
"Wonder no more, Bert. It is there that you may put the paper upon it, rather than fling the news on a dirty door-mat."
"Fancy!" said Bert. "I never!"
"Bear it in mind henceforth, and, if you will delay a moment, I will give you some black currant lozenges for your throat."
A big black cat stood by his master listening to this conversation and
Bert now referred to him.
"Would thicky cat sclow me?" he asked.
"No, Bert—have no fear of Peter Grim," answered Mr. Churchouse. "His looks belie him. He has a forbidding face but a friendly heart."
"He looks cruel fierce."
"He does, but though a great sportsman, he has a most amiable nature."
Having ministered to Bert, Mr. Churchouse retired with his book and paper. Then came Mary Dinnett, red-eyed and in some agitation. But for a moment he did not observe her trouble. He had opened his parcel and revealed a volume bound in withered calf and bearing signs of age and harsh treatment.
"A work I have long coveted—it is again 'a well-wisher,' Missis Dinnett, who has sent it to me. There is much kindness in the world still."
But Mrs. Dinnett was too preoccupied with her own affairs to feel interest in Ernest's pleasant little experience. By nature pessimistic, original doubts, when she heard of Sabina's engagement, were now confirmed and she felt certain that her daughter would never become young Ironsyde's wife. Regardless of the girl's injunction to silence, and feeling that both for herself and Sabina this disaster might alter the course of their lives and bring her own hairs with sorrow to the grave, Mary now took the first opportunity to relate the facts to Mr. Churchouse. They created in him emotions of such deep concern that neither his book nor his newspaper were opened on the day of the announcement.
Mrs. Dinnett rambled through her disastrous recital, declared that for her own part, she had already accepted the horror of it and was prepared to face the worst that could happen, and went so far as to predict what Ernest himself would probably do, now that the scandal had reached his ears. She was distraught and for the moment appeared almost to revel in the accumulated horrors of the situation.
She told the story of promise and betrayal and summed up with one agonised prophecy.
"And now you'll cast her out—you'll turn upon us and throw us out—I know you will."
"'Cast her out'? Good God of Mercy! Who am I to cast anybody out, Missis Dinnett? Shall an elderly and faulty fellow creature rise in judgment at the weakness of youth? What have I done in the past to lead you to any such conclusion? I feel very certain, indeed, that you are permitting yourself a debauch of misery—wallowing in it, Mary Dinnett—as misguided wretches often wallow in drink out of an unmanly despair at their own human weakness. Fortify yourself! Approach the question on a higher plane. Remember no sparrow falls to the ground without the cognisance of its Creator! As for Sabina, I love her and have devoted many hours to her education. I also love Raymond Ironsyde—for his own sake as well as his family's. I am perfectly certain that you exaggerate the facts. Such a thing is quite incredible. Shall I quarrel with a gracious flower because a wandering bee has set a seed? He may be an inconsiderate and greedy bee—but—"
Mr. Churchouse broke off, conscious that his simile would land him in difficulties.
"No," he said, "we must not pursue this subject on a pagan or poetical basis. We are dealing with two young Christians, Missis Dinnett—a man and a woman of good nurture and high principle. I will never believe—not if he said it himself—that Raymond Ironsyde would commit any such unheard-of outrage. You say that he has promised to marry her. That is enough for me. The son of Henry Ironsyde will keep his promise. Be sure of that. For the moment leave the rest in my hands. Exercise discretion, and pray, pray keep silence about it. I do trust that nobody has heard anything. Publicity might complicate the situation seriously."
As a matter of fact Mrs. Dinnett had told everything to her bosom friend—a woman who dwelt in a cottage one hundred yards from 'The Magnolias.' She did not mention this, however.
"If you say there's hope, I'll try to believe it," she answered. "The man came here last night and Sabina wouldn't see him, and God knows what'll be the next thing."
"Leave the next thing to me."
"She's given notice at the works. He told her to."
"Of course—quite properly. Now calm down and fetch me my walking boots."
In half an hour Ernest was on his way to Bridport. As Sabina, before him, his instinct led to Miss Ironsyde and he felt that the facts might best be imparted to her. If anybody had influence with Raymond, it was she. His tone of confidence before Mrs. Dinnett had been partly assumed, however. His sympathies were chiefly with Sabina, for she was no ordinary mill hand; she had enjoyed his tuition and possessed native gifts worthy of admiration. But she was as excitable as her mother, and if this vital matter went awry, there could be no doubt that her life must be spoiled.
Mr. Churchouse managed to get a lift on his way from a friendly farmer, and he arrived at Bridport Town Hall soon after ten o'clock. While driving he put the matter from his mind for a time, and his acquaintance started other trains of thought. One of them, more agreeable to a man of his temperament than the matter in hand, still occupied his mind when he stood before Jenny Ironsyde.
"You!" she said. "I had an idea you never came into the world till afternoon."
"Seldom—seldom. I drove a good part of the way with Farmer Gate, and he made a curious remark. He said that a certain person might as well be dead for all the good he was. Now what constitutes life? I've been asking myself that."
"It's certainly difficult to decide about some people, whether they're alive or dead. Some make you doubt if they ever were alive."
"A good many certainly don't know they're born; and plenty don't know they're dead," he declared.
"To be in your grave is not necessarily to be dead, and to be in your shop, or office, needn't mean that you're alive," admitted the lady.
"Quite so. Who doesn't know dead people personally, and go to tea with them, and hear their bones rattle? And whose spirit doesn't meet in their thoughts, or works, the dead who are still living?"
"Most true, I'm sure; but you didn't come to tell me that?"
"No; yet it has set me wondering whether, perhaps, I am dead—at any rate deader than I need be."
"We are probably all deader than we need be."
"But to-day there has burst into my life a very wakening thing. It may have been sent. For mystery is everywhere, and what's looking exceedingly bad for those involved, may be good for me. And yet, one can hardly claim to win goodness out of the threatened misfortunes to those who are dear to one."
"What's the matter? Something's happened, or you wouldn't come to see me so early."
"Something has happened," he answered, "and one turns to you in times of stress, just as one used to turn to your dear brother, Henry. You have character, shrewdness and decision."
Miss Ironsyde saw light.
"You've come for Raymond," she said.
"Now how did you divine that? But, as a matter of fact, I've come for somebody else. A very serious thing has happened and if we older heads—"
"Who told you about it?"
"This morning, an hour ago, it was broken to me by Sabina's mother."
"Tell me just what she told you, Ernest."
He obeyed and described the interview exactly.
"I cannot understand that, for Sabina saw me last night and explained the situation. I impressed upon her the importance of keeping the matter as secret as possible for the present."
"Nevertheless Mary Dinnett told me. She is a very impulsive person—so is Sabina; but in Sabina's case there is brain power to control impulse; in her mother's case there is none."
"I'm much annoyed," declared Miss Ironsyde—"not of course, that you should know, but that there should be talking. Please go home and tell them both to be quiet. This chattering is most dangerous and may defeat everything. Last night I wrote to Raymond directing him to come and see me immediately. I did not tell him why; but I told him it was urgent. I made the strongest appeal possible. When you arrived, I thought it was he. He should have been here an hour ago."
"If he is coming, I will go," answered Ernest. "I don't wish to meet him at present. He has done very wrongly—wickedly, in fact. The question is whether marriage with Sabina—"
"There is no question about that in my opinion," declared the lady. "I am a student of character, and had she been a different sort of girl—. But even as it is I suspend judgment until I have seen Raymond. It is quite impossible, however, after hearing her, to see what excuse he can offer."
"She is a very superior girl indeed, and very clever and refined. I always hoped she would marry a schoolmaster, or somebody with cultured tastes. But her great and unusual beauty doubtless attracted Raymond."
"I think you'd better go home, Ernest. I'll write to you after I've seen the boy. Do command silence from both of them. I'm very angry and very distressed, but really nothing can be done till we hear him. My sympathy is entirely with Sabina. Let her go on with her life for a day or two and—"
"She's changed her life and left the Mill. I understand Raymond told her to do so."
"That is a good sign, I suppose. If she's done that, the whole affair must soon be known. But we talk in the dark."
Mr. Churchouse departed, forgot his anxieties in a second-hand book shop and presently returned home.
But he saw nothing of Raymond on the way; and Miss Ironsyde waited in vain for her nephew's arrival. He did not come, and her letter, instead of bringing him immediately as she expected, led to a very different course of action on his part.
For, taken with Sabina's refusal to see him, he guessed correctly at what had inspired it. Sabina had threatened more than once in the past to visit Miss Ironsyde and he had forbidden her to do so. Now he knew from her mother why she had gone, and while not surprised, he clutched at the incident and very quickly worked it into a tremendous grievance against the unlucky girl. His intelligence told him that he could not fairly resent her attempt to win a powerful friend at this crisis in her fortunes; but his own inclinations and growing passion for liberty fastened on it and made him see a possible vantage point. He worked himself up into a false indignation. He knew it was false, yet he persevered in it, as though it were real, and acted as though it were real.
He tore up his aunt's letter and ignored it.
Instead of going to Bridport, he went to his office and worked as usual.
At dinner time he expected Sabina, but she did not come and he heard from Mr. Best that she was not at the works.
"She came in here and gave notice on Saturday afternoon," said the foreman, shortly, and turned away from Raymond even as he spoke.
Then the young man remembered that he had bade Sabina do this. His anger increased, for now everybody must soon hear of what had happened.
In a sort of subconscious way he felt glad, despite his irritation, at the turn of events, for they might reconcile him with his conscience and help to save the situation in the long run.