CHAPTER XXII.
["WELL, PETER?"]
Next day was Sunday. Compared with other days at Clam Beach, it was the same with a difference--leisure combined with fresh air, but partaken of in a different form. Church was the recognised occupation; but the churches were at Blue Fish Creek, four miles away, down the coast in the other direction from Lippenstock. Omnibuses were in use to convey the inmates, and everybody went, even the old people, the dull ones, the invalid, and the young children. It was the only outing which the dull people allowed themselves; there was nothing to pay for the carriage exercise, and they never missed it.
Mrs Naylor and Mrs Wilkie remained at home. They had had enough of driving the day before, and found it agreeable now to sit still in the deserted gallery, and absorb sunshine and fresh air in peace. At least such was the state of Mrs Naylor's feelings. Not being a British mother, she had considerable confidence in her daughter's ability to take care of herself, so long, at least, as that pernicious young man Walter Blount was away, and she had no ground to suspect his presence on Fessenden's Island. Besides, she was aware now that the girl's uncle had also been left behind, therefore she was safe, not to mention Peter Wilkie, whose mother had been making herself ridiculous on the subject all the previous evening. There was nothing very compromising in the situation, so far as she could see; in fact, with her desire to suppress the girl's kindness for Blount, she could almost have wished there had been. It would have brought the other young man up to the point of committing himself, and, with a little maternal pressure, compelled her to accept him; and as she had quite made up her mind that Margaret was to marry in Toronto, that pressure would assuredly be forthcoming.
Mrs Wilkie's motherly feelings were in a state of ebullition which would not let her sit still. She would get up from her chair and pace the gallery with irregular steps, puffing and sighing distractedly, get tired and plump down again, pressing her hands together, and sighing worse than before. Her boy was done for--bagged by a designing girl. Speculatively and in the abstract, she was wont to express a strong desire to see him married, whatever she may have felt; but the ideal spouse had never yet appeared--or rather, whenever there seemed a possibility of any fair one finding favour in his eyes, she began to see objections, even if she had herself recommended the girl and fancied that she would like him to marry her. Speculatively, she had held Margaret Naylor in the highest esteem; actually, she found herself detesting her with all her might. She had struck up quite a friendship with her mother, and the fellow-boarders had differed only as to which of the mothers was most desirous of being allied to the other. Now, alas! her son's fate seemed to be decided. She must resign the first place in his care, and had her supplanter been a seraph with wings come straight down from heaven, she could not have accepted her without a spasm of jealousy.
"Cast upon a desert island," she muttered to herself, as she paced the gallery. "A second Robinson Crusoe, with his man Friday. But it's not a man Friday! It's worse; it's a girl Friday!--or rather, it's worse than any Friday at all--it's the parrot! A gabbin', chatterin', useless thing--all tongue and feathers, and not wan grain of sense in its head. An empty, feckless, dressed-up doll, with nothing but the face and the clothes to recommend her. How can men of intelleck be such fools? And after all, it isn't much of a face even. I've seen----" but here the soliloquy grew inaudible; only, judging by the toss of her head, which set the little grey curls on her temples a-dancing, it must have been what she had seen in her own mirror long ago which was so much more admirable.
She dropped into a chair near her companion, panting, and fanned herself vehemently, complaining of the heat. It seemed to make her hotter still to sit beside Mrs Naylor, in her present frame of mind.
"Try to sit still, dear Mrs Wilkie. You will find it the best way to get cool," Mrs Naylor said, very sweetly. "He will be sure to be home very soon. My brother-in-law is with them, you know; and between two gentlemen, they will be sure to contrive some means of getting away."
Mrs Wilkie snorted, and fanned herself more vehemently than before, relapsing into her late mutterings about Robinson Crusoe and the desert island; but, disturbed as she was, she had presence of mind enough to suppress the parrot, and complained of the heat and her palpitations instead.
Mrs Naylor grew positively nervous, and even began to feel an anticipatory pity for her daughter, in the prospect of so tumultuous a mother-in-law--when, quite unexpectedly, the truants drove up to the door.
"Peter, you rascal!" his mother exclaimed, jumping up and running down-stairs to meet him. "You've nearly been the death of me;" and, to demonstrate how much she had suffered, so soon as she came within range of his supporting arms, she pressed both hands upon her "palpitation," crying, "Oh!" and made as if she would fall.
Peter caught her as intended, and supported her up to her room, not soothing her, by any means, but scolding her roundly, in good set terms; but then he had known her for many years, and understood her idiosyncrasies. Doubtless his system was the right one. Soothing would only have encouraged her to rave and do the scolding herself, till her palpitations came on in earnest. He was an excellent son, whatever his shortcomings in other respects might be; and there are constitutions which require what their medical advisers might call "bracing treatment," just as others agree with bland and soothing remedies.
"Well, Peter?" she asked, with impatient eagerness, so soon as they were closeted together, in complete forgetfulness of the scene which she had been enacting the minute before--forgetting her incipient faintness, and likewise the rough restoratives which had been applied. "Have ye done it?"
"Done what, mother?"
"You know very well what I mean. Have ye promised to marry that girl down-stairs?"
"I have not."
She heaved a great sigh of relief; but she went on with her catechism. "How's that? I never saw ye more taken up with anybody. Ye stuck to her like a burr the livelong day; and many were the envious glances I saw some others casting after you two, as ye went dandering over the hills like a pair of lovers. I was sure ye were nabbet--just grippet and done for like a wired rabbit; and, says I to myself, there's wan of the simple wans that love simplicity, and she's just inveigled him into makin' her an offer."
"She doesn't want to inveigle me. She is provided already. She did not give me the chance to make a fool of myself, like your young friend in the Proverbs, whom you are so fond of talking about. She availed herself of my escort to bring her to a man she liked better than me; that was all."
"The besom! She took her use out of ye, and let ye slide? Do ye mean to tell me that, Peter Wilkie? And are ye going to stand it? Have ye nothing more to say than just stand like a gowk and own til it? Have ye no spurrit left?"
"Whisht, mother! and don't haver."
"Whisht yourself! Do ye think I'm going to sit still and see a monkey like that scancing at my son? She'd have the assurance, would she, to take her use out of my boy, and throw him away when she was done, like a socket gooseberry! My certie, but she'll rue it yet!"
"She did nothing, mother. The girl is engaged, though we did not know it. You would not have me cut in and break up an engagement?"
"Ye might, if ye liked. Your poseetion would justifee you, and the girl would be the gainer."
"But I wouldn't, mother, if she was fond of some one else."
"And who's the young man?"
"You don't know him. He is a Mr Blount, who was staying here last week, but he went away."
"I never saw him, and ye know I have been a great deal with the girl's mother. I'm thinking the attachment has not gone far, or I would have seen him hanging about Mrs Naylor."
"I do not think Mrs Naylor likes him, and that was why he came to the island to meet her quietly."
"Illeecitly? It'll be an illeecit amoor!"
"Whisht, mother! and don't speak French. You are taking away the girl's character without knowing it."
"She deserves it, and more. To trifle with a Deputy Minister, and have a sweetheart without telling her mother! I never heard the like. Ye're well quit o' her, Peter."
"I never had her. She would not look at me."
"Set her up! But it will be my duty to say a quiet word to Mrs Naylor, and enlighten her about her daughter's ongoings. It'll be good for the hizzy, and a warning to her not to make use of gentlemen of poseetion to serve her underhand ends."
"You won't, mother. It is no concern of yours. We know nothing about the Naylors' affairs. Let them settle their own hash."
"I cannot but let a mother know about her daughter's ongoings. And oh, but she's fond of her! It will stab her to the heart. But it may be blessed to herself, for she's inclined to be rather high sometimes. It's time she was learning a little humeelity."
"If you do, you'll disgrace me. People will say it was because she would not look at me that I went and betrayed the girl's meeting her lover, out of pure spite. Her uncle was there, besides, so it is no concern of ours. And again, I do not want her."
"Of course not. But to think she would go walking away with you before everybody, and laughing at you in her sleeve, to keep tryst with another man! My blood just biles to think of it. I'd like to nip her ears for her. But see if I don't give her a bit of my mind ere all's done."
"If you do, mother----"
"Now, don't be clenchin' your fists at me, you unnatural boy. Just your father over again. And a dour, cantankerous, wrongheaded gowk he always was. He'd go out in the world and let them just trample on him, and then he'd come home to his poor sufferin' wife, and play the roaring lion. But he'd play another tune now, I warrant, if he could get me back again. He'd be glad enough to have me, now he has to do without me. And so with you, Peter, when you see me laid out stiff in my coffin, ye'll be wishin' ye had used me better. Ah, my bonny man, ye'll be wishin', when it's too late, ye had behaved different to your fond old mother!" which was pathetic, and caused the speaker to wipe her eyes. The effect on her son was different.
"I wish you would let the old man alone," he said. "It would sound better. Nobody knows anything about him here, and need not, if you will but hold your tongue. Some day you will forget yourself; there will be a washing of our family linen held in public, and nobody will think the more of either you or me. As for the young lady, unless you will promise to say nothing either to her or her mother, we pack up everything tonight, and back we go to Canada to-morrow morning."