Chapter Twenty Four.
The Garden Sale.
“Forty-three pounds seven and twopence, nearly fifty pounds, my darlings, in solid coin of the realm, and all of our amassing!” cried Nan three hours later, as the last visitor drove away from the door of Thurston House, and the contents of the cash-boxes were counted over by half a dozen eager workers. “Here’s a triumph for us, for our hopes never soared above a modest twenty pounds, and where it has all come from, I don’t know! A great deal of work is left, so that, I fear me, our friends must have wasted their substance on eating and drinking and riotous living, as exemplified by sails in the punt. I could have sold my carvings three times over, and the compliments which were showered upon me I would blush to repeat! My cheeks ache with smiling polite acknowledgments, and indeed I’m nothing but a mass of aches from head to foot. How on earth do poor girls manage to stand behind a counter all day, and not snap off the customers’ heads? My poor feet are in a lamentable condition!”
“I’m sorry to hear it; but they look, if you will allow me to say so, considerably better than they did a few hours ago,” said Gervase, glancing at the white shoes with an approving smile. “Why don’t you sit down, if you are so tired? There is a delightful seat waiting under that tree, and no more work to do, so that I should say the sooner you take possession of it the better!”
“Oh yes, yes. Let’s all go!” gushed Agatha, leading the way onward, unconscious of Gervase’s look of dismay. “Let’s go and rest, and talk it all over! The best part of an entertainment is when the people go, and you can quiz them, and make remarks, and—”
“Eat up the scraps!” concluded Kitty aptly, seizing a plate of cakes from a table as she passed, and illustrating her words with the aid of the daintiest morsel she could select. Christabel ejaculated “Kittay!” in a tone of dignified remonstrance; but the protest was for form’s sake merely, for hers were the next pair of hands to rob the dish, and it was neither one macaroon, nor two, which satisfied her appetite.
“I really think it has been a great success,” she said, munching away, and using an even greater amount of emphasis than usual in her elation of spirits. “The people behaved splendidly! Miss Shorter’s behaviour I consider simply noble! Do you know what she did? Refused to buy anything at all, my deahs, until every one else had chosen, and then went about buying up all the old rubbish which no one would have. It would have made you weep to see her collection of atrocities, and the old dear beamed away as if she were quite delighted. I call it Christian to buy straw spill-boxes and cork frames for the good of your fellow-creatures!”
“But think of the ni-ice little fire they will make when the weather turns chilly!” said Jim wickedly, as he jolted Chrissie’s elbow, jerked the plate out of Kitty’s hand, and made a snap at Agatha’s cake, held temptingly before him. He could never by any chance sit near the girls without teasing them in some such schoolboy fashion; and though they made a great show of indignation, they would in reality have been much disappointed if he had taken them at their word. In the present instance all three girls fell upon him at once, and, having reduced him to a state of submission, continued their song of jubilation.
“We took five pounds at the refreshment stall alone. It would make a scandal in the parish if I divulged how many plates of strawberries the vicar ate. Mrs Bolter bought up all the macaroons. ‘Home-made, my dear? X-ellent! I must really beg the recipe.’ Mrs Booth asked the price of everything, and sniffed, and walked away. What a woman! Mrs Raleigh seemed quite indignant because I had no eggs. ‘Dear me! I quite counted on getting fresh eggs!’ Mr Vanburgh had only one cup of tea. I don’t call that helping the cause of charity!”
“I was busy in another direction, and if I neglected the tea, I did my duty nobly by the lemonade. I am afraid we did not make very much money, but, considering the low rates, it came to more than I expected. How much did we take altogether, Miss Lilias?”
“Two pounds, one and sixpence; and all pure profit, remember! We had no outlay to deduct,” replied Lilias, with the shrewd little air of business which contrasted so strangely with her child-like looks. “Looking at it in that light, I think ours was the most profitable of all the departments.”
“And I made nothing! I feel quite guilty among you all, for I took not a single coin the whole afternoon,” said Maud the modest; but Jim would not allow his favourite sister to decry herself in his presence, and was up in arms in a moment in her defence.
“And why not, pray? Because you were doing the thankless work, as you always are, and fielding for every one else. That was my task, too; and let me tell these young people that they have to thank us for their success. You tackled the dowagers, and put them into a good temper by asking after their ailments, and I managed the girls. Bless their pretty hearts, they would do anything for me! You should have heard me complimenting ’em, and quoting poetry by the yard, and all the while luring ’em on towards the fancy stall. Then I’d nothing to do but remark, ‘See that cosy? I drew the design.’ ‘Observe that cushion? that’s my favourite colour,’ and they fairly jostled each other in their eagerness to buy it. It was our gentle influence behind the scene which helped you on, young women; and don’t you forget it.”
Maud smiled; but the smile flickered out all too quickly, as her smiles had a habit of doing nowadays, and her brother glanced at her sharply. Maud was not herself, and he feared that he knew too well the reason of the change. The news of Ned Talbot’s engagement to Lilias had smitten him dumb with surprise; but as none of the home letters breathed a hint of a like feeling, he had tried to persuade himself that he had been mistaken in his earlier surmises. This had been easy to do, for Master Jim was not given to distressing himself unnecessarily; but since his return home his fears had sprung into life again in unwelcome fashion. When Maud returned to the house he rose as if to follow, but, changing his mind, turned back and took possession of Kitty Maitland instead.
“What is the matter with my Maud?” he asked her the moment they had turned a corner and were safely out of hearing. “She hasn’t half the life and go in her that she had last time I was home. What have you been doing to her, I should like to know?”
Kitty elevated her eyebrows until they were almost lost to sight beneath her curling hair.
“Personally,” she said, “personally I have treated her with every consideration. Maud is Maud, and no one in this neighbourhood would dare to treat her otherwise. Of course if other people—from a distance—choose to make lunatics of themselves, and—and—”
“All right—you need say no more! I thought as much; and as you and I had discussed the situation together last year, I wanted to see if your ideas agreed with mine. I could have sworn we were right, and
can’t imagine how this muddle has come about. It’s a big mistake anyhow, and some one will find it out before long, or my name’s not James Rendell. It’s not my business, I suppose, but I—I should uncommonly like to kick somebody, just as a small relief to my feelings!”
“Oh, so should I—badly; but I’m afraid I couldn’t kick hard enough,” said Kitty humbly. “The worst of it is you have to be civil, because to show your suspicions would be the most unkind thing you could do. I know Nan agrees with us, and I think Elsie too, but the others seem quite pleased and satisfied.”
“Well, let it be a lesson to you, never to allow yourself to be influenced by looks. ‘Appearance is deceitful, and beauty vain,’” quoted Jim sententiously. “That Vanburgh fellow, for instance, is, I suppose, better-looking to the casual glance than I am myself, but I don’t need to point out to you the infinite superiority of my character. Whenever, my estimable Katherine, you meet with a man who is popularly styled handsome, take my word for it, he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and ought to be avoided. People like you and me, with noble hearts and ugly faces,”—but at this point even Kitty’s forbearance came to an end, and she stalked off to the house in a fume of indignation. Feminine fourteen does not find the consolation it should in nobility of character at the cost of plainness of feature!
Gervase and Nan, left alone on the garden seat, had meantime turned towards each other with inquiring smiles. It was the first time they had found themselves alone, and each was anxious to question the other concerning the time of absence.
“Well,” quoth he, “and how have you been, and what have you been about all this long month?”
“Quite well, thank you; and I’m proud to say, slaving like a nigger for the good of my fellow-creatures. An ignorant man can hardly realise the amount of work it takes to get up a sale like this, but I shall bear the marks to my grave. Look at that!” and she held out towards him a pair of sunburned hands, shapely enough, but disfigured with sundry scars and bruises inflicted by hammer and chisel. Her look of pride in her wounds was comically in contrast to her companion’s distress, as his glance wandered from the little hard-worked fingers to his own white hands,—almond-nailed, soft-palmed, taper-fingered, the hands of a man who has lived an idle life, and known little or nothing of the reality of work. Nan’s eyes followed his, and she laughed in amused fashion. “Mine look like the man’s, and yours like the woman’s! The contrast makes mine browner than ever. How do you manage to keep them so white?”
“Don’t!” said Gervase shortly. “I am not at all proud of them, Miss Nan. They have been useless enough hitherto, and if they find any work now, it is more your doing than their own. I have tried to turn over a new leaf since I saw you last, and to remember your axiom—”
“And did you find them? Did you help them over? Were many lame, and not able to walk?”
“Crowds! Dozens! Scores! The whole parish seems hobbling; and I foresee that that stile will keep me busy, now that I have begun. It was astonishing how many cripples seemed waiting for my advent, and what a lot of ‘helping over’ they required. When they had recovered from the shock of discovering that I was showing some interest in their affairs, they were not at all bashful about stating their desires. One man wanted a new roof to his cottage—his wife was rheumatic, and objected to the rain coming through on her bed. I had previously refused the request through my agent, but when I went to inspect the place, I could not deny that repairs were needed. The woman showed me her fingers, too—most unpleasant! I would rebuild the whole cottage rather than look at them again!”
He shrugged his shoulders, with a relapse into his old affectation of manner, which brought Nan’s eyes upon him with a flash of indignation; but she refrained from remonstrance, as, after all, he had granted her request; and he continued his story uninterrupted.
“Another man begged for an extra strip of land where an invalid daughter might keep chickens, and so contribute towards the family-purse. Three widows had sons to place, and seemed to think that a word from me would be sufficient to secure positions with handsome salaries; half a dozen women demanded letters to hospitals. The school marm wanted an additional window in her cottage, which is about as gloomy a little hole as I have had the pleasure of entering; and the vicar, hearing reports of my new-found generosity, requested a donation towards a new organ, felt he would be the better for a second curate, and remarked en passant that he had had a lifelong desire to visit the Holy Land. I promised to pay the last hundred pounds for the organ when he had made up the rest of the sum, said that the parish was too small to allow two whole curates and myself to live together in peace and harmony; and congratulated him on his good fortune in not having visited Palestine. I have, and ever since my return have been strenuously striving to forget, and work back to my old dreams. He went away saddened and surprised; but as he is neither poor nor hard-worked, I did not consider that he came within my category. I was beginning to feel a trifle overworked, and was quite relieved to get away for a rest!”
“I think you have done splendidly, and am sure you have enjoyed it, in spite of all you may say. It gives one such a lovely, warm, glowey feeling to help other people! On the rare occasions when I have succeeded in doing it, I have just longed to be a philanthropist, for I felt so deliriously happy and pleased with myself. You can’t look me in the face and deny that you have been far happier this last month, and far less bored and cynical?”
Gervase laughed, and shrugged his shoulders.
“Have it your own way! I deny nothing. I am considerably the loser both in time and money by the new arrangement, but perhaps that is wholesome discipline. I don’t know that I have experienced much of the ‘glow’ as yet; which is, I suppose, because I have not your affection for my fellow-creatures; but I hope it is yet to come, for it sounds an attractive sensation.”
“Don’t laugh at me,” said Nan severely. “I said glowey, and I mean glowey! No other word expresses the sensation. You’ll understand some day when you have it yourself, and be sorry that you made fun of me. As for liking your people, the more you help them, the more interested you will feel, until in the end you will positively love them as if they were your own relatives.”
Gervase looked dubious.
“If only they would refrain from exhibiting their deformities! I do so strongly object to looking at disagreeable objects,” he sighed plaintively; then suddenly his face grew grave, and he added in a different voice, “It will be a long time, I fear, before I can reach your standard of loving help. So far it is a duty only, and a distasteful one in to the bargain; but I will persevere, in hope of better things. There is one person in the parish who has been set in the right way through your instrumentality. If the other efforts have failed, this, at least, has been a success, and it was time that some one took him in hand. An idle, loafing rascal who thought of nothing but his own comfort, and was the biggest waster in the village. He has set to work now, and he shall stick to it, or I’ll know the reason why! I’ll keep a stern hand on him, Nan, for your sake; for it was you, not I, who set this ball a-rolling, and I am only the executor of your orders. It is you who have played the good angel in his life, and he shall have no chance of slipping back.”
“But you mustn’t be too stern with the poor young man. You must make allowances, and be patient and forbearing. I shall be so interested to know how he goes on. It is nice to have a protegé, and feel that one has had some part in his reformation. Tell me his name, so that I may know what to call him.”
Gervase looked at her curiously. The eager face was without a suspicion of embarrassment, but it coloured over with a quick flush of surprise as she listened to his reply.
“His name,” Gervase said slowly, “you have heard before. His name is Vanburgh!”