Chapter Twenty Three.
Jim Returns.
“In work, in work, in work alway, let my young days be passed, that I may fade away and die, as I am doing f–ast!” sighed Kitty Maitland one afternoon a month later, as she sat in the porch-room, surrounded with a mountain of needlework, on which she was laboriously stitching labels, while the elder girls consulted together as to prices, and Elsie plied an iron at a side-table, smoothing away disfiguring creases and crumples. It was amazing to see the quantity of work which had been gathered together, and nobody was more surprised at the amount than the workers themselves. When the contents of drawers, ottomans, and cupboards had been gathered together and laid on the table, the girls had gasped with amazement. Who could have believed that their little efforts could have achieved such a whole? Who could have credited that friends would have come forward with such generous and ready help? During the last few days parcels had arrived by every post, and from the most unexpected sources; while good, kind Maud had come home from Paris with a box full of spoils from the Louvre and Bon Marché. Lilias declared that her heart leapt within her when she reflected that she had originated the beneficent scheme; but Nan vowed that it made her tired even to look at the things, and reflect how hard-worked she must have been; and Kitty, as has been seen, went in absolute fear of her life!
“I never want to see another pin-cushion so long as I live!” she announced tragically, as she tacked the label on the last of these useful articles, and tossed it impatiently to her companions. “If you charge more than one and six for that beauty, it’s a cheat, for it’s a regular museum of odds and ends. Heigho! this grows monotonous. Let me go out into the garden and begin preparations there. My master mind is wasted sitting here sewing on labels. I want scope—variety!”
“You can’t get it then, until you have finished the work on hand. It ought not to matter to you what you do, so long as you are helping forward,” said Lilias severely. “To-morrow morning will be plenty of time to arrange the tables.”
“If it is fine! I am sorry to discourage you, but it is raining already. I see five drops on the window-pane,” announced Elsie in a tone of satisfaction, born of the remembrance that she had “told them so!” months ago, and that they had refused to believe her; but her triumph was short-lived, for the girls only laughed at her five drops, called her their “faithful croaker,” and altogether played such havoc with her dignity that she retired within her shell in displeasure. Had the occasion been less important, she would have flown to her room to pour out her woes to the ever-sympathetic diary; but no personal slight could be allowed to interfere with work to-day, for at four o’clock Jim would arrive, and never should it be said that the Rendell girls were engaged on their own devices when the one and only brother returned to his home! The first few hours after Jim’s arrival could be spent in no other way than gazing upon him, in drinking in his words, and hanging around him in adoring admiration.
By four o’clock the porch-room was abandoned, and each sister, attired in her best blouse and freshest skirt, was craning her head out of the dining-room window, while Kitty Maitland hovered in the background, scarcely less excited than themselves. He came. He stepped out of the fly, paid the cabman, and lounged up the path, lifting his head to nod in patronising fashion to his adorers. He was no Apollo of beauty, no Samson of strength, but just an ordinary-looking young man in an ordinary grey suit, with ordinary irregular features redeemed from plainness by an expression of quizzical good humour; yet each of the eight beholders gave a gasp of adoration as she beheld him. His mother’s eyes swam with tears as she embraced her boy; Maud felt a ray of pure, unselfish happiness; even Lilias overlooked the fact that his collar was of an unfashionable shape in the delight of meeting. As for the younger girls, they fell upon him, and hugged and kissed, and kissed and hugged again, until he was obliged to beat them off with his long grey arms.
“Now, then! Now, then! Leave a fellow alone! I won’t stand being mauled to death!” cried the ungrateful male, scrubbing his cheek with his handkerchief, as if contaminated by the touch of so many feminine lips. “Take it easy, and I’ll speak to each in turn, but I can’t tackle the bundle together. Where’s Maud? Where’s my Maud? Come over here, Maud, and don’t let these youngsters keep you in the background! Holloa, Nan, what’s the matter with your back hair? Done it up, eh? Doesn’t look half so well, you know, but I suppose you take it out in honour and glory. Best respects, Lilias; how’s the young man? You kiddies are getting too tall—that’s what’s the matter with you. I shall feel quite an old man at this rate. Do you mean to say that is ‘Cath-er-ine Maitland’ I see before me? Kitty, my own! How large you have grown!”
“Jim, you rude man! Behave, if you can!” retorted Kitty with admirable promptitude. It was an old habit of these two to converse in couplets, though Kitty lived in chronic dread of an hour when she should fail to invent an appropriate reply. Her present success filled her with satisfaction, and evoked a burst of laughter from her companions; and though Jim rolled his eyes at her in threatening manner as he entered the drawing-room, he refrained from a further effort, and devoted his attention to the admirable tea provided for his benefit. His sisters waited upon him obsequiously, while his mother sat with folded hands gloating over the sight of the tall, masculine figure seated in state on the centre of the sofa. What joy to behold him again—her only son, her pride, her darling! How she glorified him, and exulted in him, and rejoiced in every evidence of his beautiful manhood! The sight of the thick-soled boots gave her a positive thrill of joy; she looked unmoved at the mud on the carpet, and did not even wince when he crumpled her best silk cushion behind his back.
Jim looked across, caught her glance, and flashed back an answering message which made her heart swell with joy. Her boy loved her, and had no fear to meet his mother’s eye! That was all she wanted to know, and she knew it without further questioning. Jim was not given to words; and even if he wished to speak, how could the poor boy get a chance, with seven excited girls all talking to him at the same moment?
Jim listened blankly for some moments before he could understand the drift of the remarks, but gradually the words “Sale” and “Bazaar” disentangled themselves from the clamour and awoke a dim remembrance.
“Oh, the sale for the Mission! You did tell me something about it! Coming off to-morrow, is it? That’s a bore! Why didn’t you get it over before I came?”
The girls shrieked aloud in dismay, and, under cover of their protests, Maud whispered an eager—
“Take an interest in it, do! They have worked so hard, poor dears, and they want you to help!”—which had the effect of rousing him to the importance of the position.
“All right, girls, I’ll see you through!” he announced, with the self-confidence which a man assumes as if by instinct in discussions with his womenkind. He had the vaguest ideas of what was expected, no knowledge at all of the difficulties of the position; but it never occurred to him to doubt his own ability to overcome these difficulties, and put the final triumphant touch on the girls’ labours.
“I’ll see you through!” he repeated; and his sisters chorused their thanks and murmured grateful acknowledgments, while Kitty Maitland kept silent and eyed him askance through her spectacles, registering a vow to speak faithfully on the subject of masculine vanity on the first convenient opportunity.
The next morning each of the six Rendell girls awoke with a start and a shiver of dismay. What had happened? For a moment they could not tell, yet a cloud of depression was there; and then, alas! in each case a glance at the window answered the question. Down fell the rain, splashing the panes, soaking the trees, turning the paths into pools of water, weighing down the heads of flowers, and scattering blossoms over the grass. Alas and alas! it was almost too dreadful to be believed, that after weeks of fine weather such a downpour should time itself to arrive on the very day of the long-expected sale.
“If Elsie says, ‘I told you so!’ I shall do her an injury. I shall—I know I shall! I sha’n’t be able to help it!” protested Nan; but Elsie made no such statement. To do her justice, she deeply regretted her prophecy, and felt as much distressed as if she were to blame for its fulfilment, while her morbid mind had much ado to countenance such unreasonable behaviour on the part of Providence.
“I don’t understand why it is allowed to rain when so much depended on good weather! The work won’t look half so well cramped up in the house, and we can make no money on the river, and the people who live at a distance will think it too wet to turn out, and it will all be a dead, dismal failure. It seems to me very strange that we should try to do a good deed only to be frustrated by something over which we have no control,” she lamented; and though the other girls snubbed her promptly, it was difficult to banish the same thought from their minds. If only, only it had kept fine, how different it would have been, and with what glee and zest they would have set about their preparations! As it was, they were all more or less depressed, and had it not been for Jim’s presence they would have been a sorry company; but Jim rose to the occasion with such a succession of quips and jests, such schoolboy tricks and merry whistlings, as could not fail to be infectious. He was not much use, so far as arranging the work was concerned; but, as he himself expressed it, he played the part of beast of burden, dragging tables into the library, fitting them together to take the place of stalls, and undertaking a dozen onerous duties. With the best will in the world, however, it was impossible to make the room larger than it was, or to prevent an amount of crowding which left many precious treasures hidden from sight, instead of being displayed in the sunshine of the garden. The girls sighed, and resolutely turned their eyes from the window; and thus it happened that certain things took place which they were far from suspecting. Whether the rain had spent its strength, or was put to shame by the sight of the mischief it had already wrought, it would be difficult to say; but certain it was that the downpour changed gradually to a drizzle, the drizzle grew lighter and lighter until it ceased altogether, the clouds rolled away to the east, and through the grey of the sky there broke a feeble, struggling light. Brighter and brighter it grew, stronger and stronger, until of a sudden a ray of sunshine danced across the floor of the room, and electrified its occupants in the midst of their work.
“What’s that? What’s that? The sun! The sun!” cried every one in chorus, and a stampede was made to the door to see if the good omen could possibly be true. The ground was soaking with moisture, but oh, the freshness, the sweetness, the delightful earthiness of the scent which greeted their nostrils!
“Mff!” cried Nan, opening her mouth wide to draw in deep breaths.
“Ouf!” gasped Agatha rapturously.
“Do my eyes deceive me? Has it actually stopped raining?” cried Christabel elegantly; and Jim executed a jig of triumph on the doorstep.
“It has stopped indeed! The clouds have rolled away, the sun is coming out; in another hour it will be beaming, and you will have such a day as you have not had for weeks past. I told you so! If you had only listened to me, you would have been spared all your misery. I told you so—”
“Excuse me! You did nothing of the kind. You remarked to me on my arrival that it looked ‘Jolly bad, and that it was going to be a brute of a day,’” interrupted Kitty severely; but Jim affected a convenient deafness.
“Now then,” he cried, “all hands to the pumps! I’ll set James to work to mow the lawn, and by the time it is cut and swept and the sun has shone on it for a couple of hours it will be as dry as tinder. We’ll have the paths swept too, and put a few planks across where the water has settled, and all will be as right as a trivet. Put on thick boots, and set to work to undo all you have done this morning. There is no time to lose!”
There was not, indeed; but willing hands made light work, and a more cheery band of workers it would have been difficult to find. To see Nan rushing in and out of the house, clad in a short bicycling skirt, with snow-shoes covering her slippers, and Jim’s cap stuck on the back of her head, was a sight funny enough to have cheered the most melancholy of patients; but when she executed a dance of triumph before her completed stall, her sisters held their hands to their sides in convulsions of laughter. A deeper laugh joined in with theirs, a lazy musical laugh, which could only have come from one person; and Nan, hearing it, wheeled round fully prepared to see Gervase Vanburgh standing before her. Not one whit disconcerted did she appear at the sight; but, holding out her skirt on either side, so as to display the huge cloth boots to the fullest advantage, she dropped him a curtsey and cried, “Pleased to see you, sir! I hope you admire me!”
“I do!” said Gervase in his soft drawl; and there was an accent of sincerity in his voice which brought Jim’s eyes upon him in curious scrutiny. A word from Lilias had introduced him to this heir of the Mr Vanburgh of whom he had heard so much, and now he eyed him narrowly, forming his own swift conclusion.
“Dandified! Affected! Fine face, though; good expression! Decent fellow, I should say, if the nonsense were knocked out of him. Uncommonly pleased to see Nan, too. This must be looked into!” Then he was obliged to laugh again at the downright fashion in which his sister demanded the reason of the stranger’s sudden appearance.
“What have I come for?” Gervase raised his hand deprecatingly. “To see if I could be of any use, of course. My uncle was anxious to know if he could lend anything in the way of tents or bunting, or if you would like one of his gardeners to come across and help your man. A hamper of strawberries is to be sent over presently, with the palms and plants, and the cook is concocting something very special in the shape of ices, but you are to ask for anything and everything you want. He is most anxious to help.”
“Bless him!” cried Nan devoutly. “Give him my love, and say that I shall thank him on my bended knees the moment the rush is over. The gardener would be most useful, for James has more than he can do, and we are all taken up with our own special departments.”
“And for myself? Can I do nothing to help you? I came last night on purpose for this sale, so I hope you will make me of use.” He looked at Nan as he spoke, but it was Lilias who replied, taking him at his word, with an assurance which virtually monopolised him for the entire afternoon.
“Oh, thank you so much; then will you please help me in the punt? I am going to take out small parties at sixpence a head, and intended to ask Jim to help me; but as he knows the people, it would be better if he were free to walk about, and make himself agreeable. Will you walk down to the river with me now, and have a little practice? Jim will send across for the gardener, and we ought to try how we get on together, oughtn’t we?”
“Certainly we ought. It is most necessary,” replied Gervase, and his face was absolutely devoid of expression. Whether he was disappointed or pleased, annoyed or elated, it was impossible to guess, but he turned aside without another word and followed Lilias down the path which led riverwards.
By three o’clock preparations were completed, and everything done that could be thought of to exhibit house and garden in their most favourable light. In the drawing-room the best cushions and table-covers were displayed in all their glory; in the dining-room the table was set out with the precious china tea-service, which saw the light only on festive occasions, while every silver article was polished up to reflecting point. Seven girls robed in robes of spotless white flitted to and fro in the garden, while Japanese umbrellas made picturesque splashes of colour amongst the green. The visitors were polite enough to declare that it was well worth paying the admission fee to see so pretty a scene, and were altogether in such an affable frame of mind that they were the easiest of preys. Nan’s objects of “bigotry and virtue” were speedily purchased, while Kitty and Christabel did a roaring trade in toffee and confectionery. Agatha looked wistfully at their empty stalls while she displayed pinafores and petticoats to the county visitors, heard them murmur “Very useful!” and rustle on without dropping a solitary sixpence into her box; but she consoled herself by the reflection that her turn would come later, when the villagers arrived to make their purchases, and meantime frequent doses of strawberries and fruit salad helped to sustain drooping spirits.
Elsie smiled pensively across a mountain of fancy articles, Maud helped her mother to receive the newcomers, Jim flirted violently with all the prettiest girls, and Lilias was a vision of loveliness as she punted admiring crews up and down the stream.
Gervase Vanburgh had attired himself for his work in the most immaculate of flannels, and as he stood behind his companion plying his long pole, it is safe to say that every feminine beholder remarked to her own heart that the young people were made for each other, and that it would be a sin to divide such a beautiful couple! It was true that there was some talk of an engagement to an old family friend, but as it was not officially announced it could not be binding, and dear Lilias would do well to reconsider her position, now that this charming stranger had appeared upon the scene!
Dear Lilias smiled back with sweet unconsciousness as she met her friends’ glances, but she was at no difficulty to read their meaning, and heaved a sigh for the contrariety of fate. If only, only, it had been Gervase instead of Ned—or rather, if the positions of the two men could be reversed! It would be delightful to float along the stream of life as they were even now floating down this sheltered river, a charming companion by her side, the eyes of friends turned admiringly upon her. How different from the life before her in the bleak North-country town, with poverty and anxiety for daily guests, and Ned’s worn face looking sadly at her from across the table!
Lilias shivered for all the blazing sunshine, and her heart swelled with anger. It was not fair, it was not right that her future should be blighted in this fashion. Ned should realise that she was not bound by a promise given in completely different circumstances! It was some days since she had heard from him, for his letters had been less frequent of late; and though at the bottom of her heart she knew that her own chilly replies were to blame for this diminution of her lover’s ardour, she chose to count his silence as still another offence. He was neglecting her, and she would not stand it. Like a flash of inspiration it darted into her head that she would free herself from this entanglement while there was still time. It would seem unwomanly to desert a man in the hour of misfortune, but she would act at once, and not wait until the worst happened. She would tell her mother that she was not happy; and though Mrs Rendell might disapprove her past promise, she would never persuade her to keep it in the circumstances. Yes, yes! she would be free, she must be free, and then—who could say what would happen then? The long summer lay before her, with its intimate friendship with one of the richest and most charming of his sex. Lilias raised her head with a gesture of determination, and met Gervase Vanburgh’s eyes fixed steadily upon her. His glance did not waver as it met hers, and she blushed beneath it with a new and strange feeling of discomfiture. It was as though that steady gaze had pierced beneath the surface, and read her poor, unworthy thoughts.