Volume Four—Chapter Twelve.
Mrs Otway on Love.
“Ah! Phil, Phil, Phil!” exclaimed Mrs Otway as she sat facing Eaton some mornings later, while he lay back in a Chinese cane chair, propped up by pillows. “Come, this will not do.”
He met her gaze firmly, and she went on.
“This makes five days that you have been here, tangling yourself more and more in the net. It’s time I took you by the ears and lugged you out.”
“But you will not?” he said, lifting his injured arm very gently with his right hand, sighing as he did so, and rearranging the sling.
Mrs Otway jumped up, went behind him, untied the handkerchief that formed the sling, and snatched it away.
“I won’t sit still and see you play at sham in that disgraceful way, Phil,” she cried. “It’s bad enough, staying here as you do, without all that nonsense.”
“You are too hard on me.”
“I’m not,” she cried. “I’ve seen too many wounded men not to know something about symptoms. I knew as well as could be when I was here yesterday, but I would not trust myself, and so I attacked Woodhouse about you last night, and he surrendered at once.”
“Why, what did he say?”
“Lit a cigar, and began humming, ‘Oh, ’tis love, ’tis love that makes the world go round!’”
Eaton clapped his hands upon the arms of his chair, half raised himself, and then threw himself back, and began beating the cane-work with his fingers, frowning with vexation.
“There, you see what a lot of practice it takes to make a good impostor,” said Mrs Otway.
“What do you mean?”
“How bad your arm seems!”
“Pish!” exclaimed the young man, beginning to nurse it, then ceasing with a gesture of contempt, and looking helplessly at his visitor. “The pain’s not there,” he said dolefully.
“Poor boy! What a fuss about a pretty face! There, I’m half ready to forgive you. It was very tempting.”
“And I’ve been so happy: I have indeed.”
“What, with those two men?”
“Pish!—nonsense! It’s dreadful that those two sweet ladies should be placed as they are.”
“Amen to that!”
“Mrs Hallam is the sweetest, tenderest-hearted woman I ever met.”
“Indeed.”
“No mother could have been more gentle and loving to me.”
“Except Lady Eaton,” said Mrs Otway dryly.
“Oh! my mother, of course; but then she was not here to nurse me.”
“I’d have nursed you, Phil, if you had been brought into quarters.”
“Oh, I know that!” cried Eaton warmly; “but, you see, I was brought on here.”
“Where mamma is so tender to you, and mademoiselle sits gazing at you with her soft, dark eyes, thinking what a brave hero you are, how terribly ill, and falling head-over-ears more in love with you. Phil, Phil, it isn’t honest.”
“What isn’t honest?” he said fiercely. “No man could have resisted such a temptation.”
“What, to come here and break a gentle girl’s heart?”
“But I’m not breaking her heart,” said Eaton ruefully.
“I’ve written and told your mother how things stand.”
“You have?”
“Yes; and that you have taken the bit in your teeth, and that I can’t hold you in.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” said Eaton gloomily. “I don’t want to hurt my dear mother’s feelings; but when she knows Julia and Mrs Hallam—”
“And the convict father and his friend.”
“For Heaven’s sake don’t!” cried Eaton, striking the chair and wincing hard, for he hurt his injured shoulder.
“I must, my dear boy. Marriage is a terrible fact, and you must look at it on all sides.”
“I mean to get them both away from here,” said Eaton firmly. “Their present life is horrible.”
“Yes; it is, my boy.”
“My gorge rises every time I hear that drinking scoundrel of a father speak to Julia, and that other ruffian come and fetch her away.”
“Not a very nice way of speaking about the father of your intended,” said Mrs Otway dryly—“about your host.”
“No, and I would not speak so if I did not see so much. The man has served part of his time for his old crime, of which he swears he was innocent, and I’d forget all the past if I saw he was trying to do the right thing.”
“And he is not?”
“He’s lost,” said Eaton bitterly. “The greatest blessing which could happen to this house would be for him to be thrown back into the gang. He’d live a few years then, and so would his wife. As it is he is killing both. As for poor Julia—ah! I should be less than man, loving her as I do, if I did not determine to throw all thoughts of caste aside and marry her, and get her away as soon as I can.”
“I wish she were not so nice,” said Mrs Otway thoughtfully.
“Why?”
“Because, like the silly, stupid woman I am, I can’t help sympathising with you both.”
“I knew you did in your heart,” cried Eaton joyfully.
“Gently, gently, my dear boy,” continued Mrs Otway. “I may sympathise with the enemy, but I have to fight him all the same. Have you spoken to the young lady—definitely offered marriage?”
“No, not yet.”
“But you’ve taught her to love you?”
“I don’t know—yet—”
“Judging from appearances, Phil, I’m ready to say I do know. What about mamma?”
“Ah! there I feel quite satisfied.”
“What, have you spoken to her?”
“No, but she sits and talks to me, and I talk to her.”
“About Julia?”
“Yes; and it seems as if she can read my heart through and through. Don’t think me a vain coxcomb for what I am about to say.”
“I make no promises: say it.”
“I think she likes me very much.”
“Why?”
“She comes into the room sometimes, looking a careworn woman of sixty; and when she has been sitting here for a few minutes, there’s a pleasant smile on her face, as if she were growing younger; her eyes light up, and she seems quite at rest and happy.”
“Poor thing!” said Mrs Otway sadly. “But, there, I can’t listen to any more. I am on your mother’s side.”
“And you are beaten, so you may give up. It’s fate. My mother must put up with it. So long as I am happy she will not care. And, besides, who could help loving Julie? Hush!”
There was a tap at the door, and Julia entered.
“Not I, for one,” said Mrs Otway aside, as she rose and held out her hands, kissing the young girl warmly. “Why, my dear, you look quite pale. This poor bruised boy has been worrying you and your mother to death.”
“Indeed, no,” cried Julia eagerly. “Mr Eaton has been so patient all the time, and we were so glad to be able to be of service. Sir Gordon Bourne is in the other room with mamma. May he come in and see you?”
“I shall be very glad,” said Eaton, looking at her fixedly; and Mrs Otway noted the blush and the downcast look that followed.
“Phil’s right. He has won her.”
“He proposes driving you home with him, and taking you out in his boat. He thinks it will help your recovery.”
“Oh no, I couldn’t move yet,” said Eaton quickly.
“I think it would do you good,” said Mrs Otway. “What do you say, Miss Hallam?”
“We should be very sorry to see Mr Eaton go,” said Julia quietly; “but I think you are right.”
“Phil’s wrong,” said Mrs Otway to herself.
At this moment Sir Gordon entered the room with Mrs Hallam and proposed that Eaton should return with him, but only to find, to his annoyance, that the offer was declined.
“You will have to make the offer to my husband, Sir Gordon,” said Mrs Otway merrily. “You will not find him so ungrateful.” And then she turned to Eaton, leaving the old man free to continue a conversation begun with Mrs Hallam in another room.
“I do not seem to find much success in my offers,” he said, in a low voice; “but let me repeat what I have said. Should necessity arise, remember that I am your very oldest friend, and that I am always waiting to help Millicent Hallam and her child.”
“I shall not forget,” said Mrs Hallam, smiling sadly.
“If I am away, there is Bayle ready to act for me, and you know you can command him.”
“I have always been the debtor of my friends,” replied Mrs Hallam; “but no such emergency is likely to arise. I have learnt the lesson of self-dependence lately, Sir Gordon.”
“But if the emergency did occur?”
“Then we would see,” replied Mrs Hallam.
“Well, Philip, my dear boy,” cried Mrs Otway loudly, “in three days we shall have you back.”
“Yes, in three days,” he replied, glancing at Julia, who must have heard, but who went on with a conversation in which she was engaged with Sir Gordon, unmoved.
“Then good-bye,” she cried, “Mrs Hallam, Miss Hallam, accept my thanks for your kindness to my boy here. Lady Eaton appointed me her deputy, but I’m tired of my sorry task. Good-bye. Are we to be companions back, Sir Gordon?”
“Yes—yes—yes,” said the old gentleman, “I am coming. Remember,” he said, in a low tone to Mrs Hallam.
“I never forget such kindness as yours, Sir Gordon,” she replied.
“Good-bye, Julia, my child,” he said, kissing her hands. “If ever you want help of any kind, come straight to me. Good-bye.”
“If she would only make some appeal to me,” he muttered. “But I can’t interfere without. Poor things! Poor things!”
“I beg your pardon, Sir Gordon,” said Mrs Otway. “What are poor things?”
“Talking to myself, ma’am—talking to myself.”
“You don’t like Philip Eaton,” she said quickly.
“Eh? Well, to be frank, ma’am, no: I don’t.”
“Because he likes your little protégée?”
“I’m sorry to say, madam, that she is not my protégée. Poor child!”
“Hadn’t we better be frank, Sir Gordon? Suppose Philip Eaton wanted to marry her—what then?”
“Confound him! I should like to hand him over to the blacks!”
“What if she loved him?”
“If she loved him—if she loved him, Mrs Otway?” said the old man dreamily. “Why, then—dear me! This love’s one of the greatest miseries of life. But, there, ma’am, I have no influence at all. You must go to her father, not come to me.”