A REVELATION.
"I think—" said Miss Boldero one day about a fortnight after this—"it appears to me that Leonore might now be permitted to see the rector?"—and she looked round to take the opinion of her sisters. Their father was not present.
Perhaps the speaker had awaited such an opportunity, possibly what appeared to be a very simple suggestion cost her an effort,—at any rate, something of constraint in her air and accents arrested the attention of the person most concerned, and Leo, wondering what so formal a preamble portended, was so taken aback by the climax that she did what she alone of the Bolderos ever did, she giggled.
"I can't help it, Sue; I really can't. Oh, dear—oh, dear!"
Permitted to see the rector? Had she not been almost daily seeing—and dodging—the worthy Custance for weeks past? It had seemed to her that she could not set foot outside the Abbey domain without catching a glimpse of his long, thin figure somewhere or other on the road outside,—and she had actually taken to spying out the land through a chink of the park palings in order to let the figure, if there, vanish, before venturing forth. Again she quavered apologetically, "Oh, dear—oh, dear!"
But naturally no one joined in the mirth; Maud looked contemptuous, Sybil indifferent—while a more than ordinary indignation suffused the whole countenance of their half-sister. "Really, Leo!" Sue drew herself up to her full height, and could enunciate no more.
"I mean no harm," protested Leo, stoutly. "You needn't look at me like that, all of you,"—for now she too was vexed and bit her lip. "Why mayn't I laugh when a thing is funny? And it is funny, Sue's saying that."
"Indeed? We don't happen to see it so." Maud was seldom in sympathy with jesting, and it must be owned that to a person with no sense of humour Leo's childishness was at times incomprehensible. Leo, however, had learned not to heed this.
"Well, I'll tell you," cried she, recovering. "Then you'll understand. Poor dear Euty, with his long back and hanging head—what? Oh, Sue, he has. He has the very longest back and thinnest neck—and his head regularly wiggle-waggles over his shoulder,—it will drop off some fine day,—well, I won't then, I'll to the point, as the books say. If Sue will only look a little, little bit relenting?"
"You are wounding Sue in her tenderest point," said Sybil, at length aroused to take part in the conversation. "Don't you know that, by now? Sue is a pillar of the church——"
"It is absurd to make game of Mr. Custance, at any rate," interposed Maud authoritatively. "He is a very good parish clergyman, and much more of a gentleman than any of those you were accustomed to at Deeside," and she threw an immeasurable contempt into her tone. "I never saw one with either decent manners or appearance at your table."
"That's a nasty one," muttered Sybil. Then aloud: "Now we've all had our whack at each other, and Leo has next innings; what is it you want to say, Leo? Never mind Maud; you tell Sue and me your little joke, and let us pronounce upon it."
"No, I think we have had enough;" Sue rose from her seat in offended dignity. "Leo has got to learn that a friend's name should not be bandied about, a mark for insults——"
"But I wasn't—but I didn't;" the momentary mortification Leo had undergone was forgotten in an instant, and all haste and incoherence she sprang after her sister's retreating figure, and caught it. "Sue, dear Sue, you know I never thought of such a thing. Insults? Oh, Sue!"
"They sounded like insults, Leo."
"Then they had no business to. I never would insult anybody, least of all a nice good creature like Euty—there now, you are vexed again. But do let me just say why I laughed about being 'permitted' to see him. It is because he regularly haunts my steps when I'm alone. He does, indeed he does, the dear good man. No doubt he has his reasons, but when you spoke with bated breath——"
"I don't know what you can possibly mean, Leo."
"Oh, yes, you do. You think it a blessed privilege——"
"It is a privilege."
"Not to me. I am hard put to it sometimes to scuttle out of his way."
"To scuttle out of his way!"—for sheer amazement Sue paused to listen.
"It's true, it's perfectly true." Leo nodded at her with mischievous pertinacity. "I am forever running across old Euty—Mr. Custance, then,—because, of course, he does tramp round his parish like a gallant old soul, and I'm sure I honour him for it,—but I have nowhere else to go either. It has been so awfully wet of late, the woods are sopping, so I must take to the roads, and on the roads there is Euty—Mr. Custance. And Euty—Mr. Custance—hankers after me; and you know you said I wasn't to hanker after him, not until you gave me leave——"
"I never said such a word."
"You said I was to have no dealings with anybody—except Val; and Val doesn't count. But of course Euty doesn't know that, and he thinks I'm a poor little soul, and might be glad to pass the time of day with anybody. Whereas I—I like the dear good man very well in church; but outside it, I don't pine and crave for his society. I can exist without it. You needn't stretch a point to grant it me——"
"Is that child going on forever?" struck in Maud, impatiently. "Why do you let her pour out this flood of nonsense, Sue? She simply wants to hear her own tongue, and give no one else a chance."
Apparently, however, Sue thought otherwise. Disregarding the interruption, she maintained a serious and puzzled air.
"Am I to understand that you suppose yourself an object of interest to Mr. Custance, Leo?"
"If not, why does he hunt me about the roads? Why does he come galloping after me——"
"Leo!"
"He does—he did yesterday. I was on ahead near Betty Farmiloe's cottage, and out he popped and saw me. I walked on as fast as ever I could, but his long legs took him over the ground like a racer, and he would have caught me up as sure as fate——"
"You misinterpret a very ordinary civility,——" but the speaker was not allowed to proceed.
"For goodness sake let her 'misinterpret' then," cried Sybil, diverted by the recital, "go on, Leo. Did he catch you, or did he not?"
"A cow came along, so I pretended it was a bull, and dashed into a field. Luckily there was a gate handy."
"'Pretended it was a bull'? How?" rejoined Sybil, still enjoying herself. "You really are a joke, Leo."
"I threw up my arms madly—like this. Then I made furious passes with my umbrella at the cow supposed to be bull. Finally I leaped at the gate and clambered over, unable to see in my desperation that it would have opened if I had only drawn back the bolt. Tableau. The baffled Euty sadly pursues his way, while the trembling and agitated Leo flies over the fields home."
"And never says a word about it?"—from Sybil.
"Not I. Catch me. Sue would have been cross, as she is now," with a roguish glance; "she would have thought I wanted to rob her of her beloved rector—oh, we know how she adores her Euty——"
"What?" It was a new voice that spoke. "What?" repeated General Boldero, stepping forward into their midst. "Do my ears deceive me? Leonore," he paused and gasped. "Wretched child!"—but pomposity prevailed. "May I inquire in all politeness what is the meaning of that most extraordinary, most preposterous accusation? You are silent. You may well be. Your most disgraceful language—again I demand what is the meaning of it?"
He seized her arm, as though she were not already nailed to the spot. "The meaning, girl—the meaning?"
"The—the meaning?"
"I repeat, the meaning. I am coming along the passage, and I hear you shouting at the pitch of your voice——"
"At the pitch of my voice?" echoed Leo, mechanically. Her eye was not upon her father, and she only half heard his thunderous charge,—it was something else which petrified her senses and made her head swim.
Sue? What had come to Sue?
White as death Sue had fallen into a chair, every feature distorted by such a mute agony of terror that—oh, there was no mistaking it, no concealing it, and yet,—Leo looked round.
She was between her unfortunate sister and the rest of the party, Sue having cowered down behind her where she stood,—while Maud and Sybil, to avoid being implicated, had precipitately retreated to a window-recess, the former with a shrug of her shoulders, the latter with the intention of slipping off as soon as might be.
But Sue? Was it possible?—yet nothing else was possible. Nothing else could account for a collapse so sudden and complete. Oh, poor Sue—poor, prim, stately Sue. At another moment,—but Leo must not stop to think what she would have done at another moment; her one aim now must be to shield the defenceless creature, exposed through her. So far, the parent who made poor Sue's life a burden, and yet whom she believed in, loved, and served to the best of her humble power, had concentrated his attention on herself as chief delinquent, but at any moment his infuriated eyes might turn to that shrinking, trembling form, and then?
With the air of a combatant delighted to welcome an unexpected ally, "I am so glad you came in, father," said she.
Glad? The general stepped back as though she had hit him. Glad?
"They are all so down upon me about that stupid old parson of ours," continued Leonore, glibly. "They won't listen to anything I say against him, but I know you will believe me. He really does follow me about the roads, you know; and of course any one might guess what for. He's a money-grabber, that's what he is. Not a 'money-grubber'! I know that kind; we had it in plenty at Deeside, but a 'grabber,' and a 'grabber' of the worst type. He thinks of nothing else but getting money out of you for his poor people. Well, I daresay they are poor, but then so am I, and as I can't tell him so—for you know you forbade me yourself—all I can do is to flee. Yet they laugh me to scorn when I say I flee, and he pursues."
She paused for breath, and moved a little more in front of Sue.
"Humph!" said the general, twirling his moustache. He was arrested, but by no means appeased. She set to work again.
"I know you would not wish me to be mulcted, father, and it is so difficult to say 'no' when a good sort like Mr. Custance——"
"You didn't call him that just now," burst forth the general.
"Oh, I always call him 'Euty' to myself," said Leo, serenely. "Girls do, you know. We always give people nicknames,—and though he is a parson, there's no harm in it, is there? Sue thinks it dreadful, and that there ought to be a sort of halo round the clerical head; and that's why I was teasing her just now——"
"You used most ridiculous, I may say most offensive terms;" he bristled up again.
"Just to have a little rise out of Sue. For Sue was so very positive that the saintly Euty never chased me on the road, supposing me to be rich and generous and likely to give him oceans of money for his poor people, that I had to go at her back. But you know it's true, don't you, father?"
"True enough." He rose to the fly at once. "Why, aye, if this is the case, it certainly—hum, ha—certainly it alters the case. You are a tolerably sharp little piece of goods, Leo, and have discovered what your numskulls of sisters never could. That man would have us all in the workhouse, if he had his way. Directly he crosses this threshold out comes a subscription list, or note-book, or something. It's sheer robbery, that's what it is. Often and often I have to skulk down a back lane, or go into a door I never meant to enter, because I see him coming. I know if once he buttonholes me, I'm done for."
"And as I simply can't be 'done for' in that way, I flee for my life. Now do say a good word for me, father,"—and, to the general's unspeakable amazement, the next moment a little friendly figure was nestling against him, holding on to his coat, and looking up into his face.
The sensation this gave General Boldero was more than novel, it was extraordinary. He was a tolerably old man, he had been twice married, and had always lived surrounded by the gentler sex, but it is safe to say he had never been nestled against in his life. He looked down, he looked up, and then he looked down again.
"Deuced pretty little rogue!" he muttered.
"They think Mr. Custance doesn't know one of us from another, and that it is the most presumptuous cheek on my part to imagine he has ever given me a thought," proceeded Leonore, still intent upon her task; "they think he is far, far above all sublunary affairs——"
"Rubbish. He is no more above them than I am. I don't say Custance isn't well enough, and I have a—a sort of regard for him. But you have the sense to see what your sisters have not——"
"That one simply can't be mulcted at every turn." She had heard "mulcted" on his own lips on more than one occasion; it should serve as a weapon to shield Sue now. Sue, still mute and motionless, cringed behind, but Leo had an intuition that she breathed relief.
"That's it; that's it exactly," cried the general, delighted, and again he appended a mental comment: "Deuced clever little rat!" "Well, I'm glad to find there is some explanation of what really sounded a most outrageous statement;" he turned to depart, now in excellent humour. "I must say, however, that you would do well to see that the dining-room door is shut when next you are amusing yourself with that kind of tomfoolery. Any of the servants coming along had only to step inside and listen behind the screen, and there would have been a fine tittle-tattle among them—aye, and it wouldn't have stopped there. It would have been all through the village that Miss Boldero——"
"Oh, dear, how funny!" laughed Leo. She had felt Sue's fingers clutch her dress behind. She stepped with her father's step, as he moved to pass, and made a face at him.
"There—there—you absurd monkey!" but the monkey was pushed aside with a gentle hand, and marching off with all the honours of the field in his own esteem, the general never once looked at Sue.