Mrs. Harper and her daughter were delighted to see her. The house was empty; the girls had gone home for the Easter holidays, and they would be very cosy and comfortable. They asked many veiled and clever questions anent her money. What had she done with it? Surely she had not spent it all? How much was the tailor-made? How much was the black? But she gave them no satisfactory answer. That was her affair, and not in the bond!
Days passed, and yet no sign of Mr. West, and Mrs. Harper was becoming a little impatient and irritable. Could he mean to disappear for a second time? What was she to think?
Meanwhile Madeline wrote to the farm daily, posting the letters herself. Here is one of them as a specimen:—
“My dear Laurence,
“No news yet. So glad to get your letters. I call for them every day. It looks funny to see nothing but W. on the envelope, but it would never do to put West, much less Wynne. It makes me very happy to hear that you and baby are getting on so well and are making the best of this lovely weather. How I wish I was back with you—ten—fifty times a day—strolling about the lanes and fields among the lambs and primroses, instead of being cooped up here, in this hot, dusty suburb. You must not do too much! How dare you walk to the top of Brownwood Hill! It is just four times too far. How could the Holts allow you to be so foolish? But I’m afraid you don’t mind them. You ask what I am doing? I am trying hard to make believe that I am Madeline West once more. Don’t be shocked, my dear Laurence, but at times I succeed admirably, especially when I sit down to an hour’s practising on the schoolroom piano. I am getting up my music and singing again, and working very hard, so that my father won’t be disappointed as far as my voice is concerned. I have looked over the new books that the girls had last half in the first class—horrible essays and lectures and scientific articles—about the glacial periods, and shooting stars, such as I abhor, and you love; but I know that I ought to read up, for I am a shameful ignoramus. I, however, enjoy rubbing up my French, and have devoured several most delicious books by Gyp. Miss Harper lent them to me. She said, now that I had left school, I might read them. I asked her—just to see how she would look—if she had any of Émile Zola’s. I had heard so much of them. She nearly fainted, and said, ‘My dear, you must never even mention that man’s name!’ I have learnt to dress my hair in the new style. I’ve gone shopping with Miss Harper. Altogether I’ve been very busy, and when I sit in my old place at meal-times, and stare at the familiar wall-paper, and familiar cups and saucers, and when I listen to the Harpers’ well-known little sayings and turns of speech, when I look out of the windows, or sit alone in the schoolroom, as I used formerly to do in holiday times, I honestly declare that I feel as if all about you was a dream, and that I cannot bring myself to realize that I have ever left school at all. You see I am naturally a very adaptable creature; I drop into a groove at once, and accommodate myself to circumstances. For instance, Mr. Holt said I was born to be a farmer’s wife! I have lived here for so many, many years that I fall straight back into my old place. Then I rouse up and go off to the post-office, when the second post is due, and receive one of your welcome letters; and I know that I am not dreaming, but that I am actually married. Oh, Laurence, I sometimes look at the Harpers and say to myself—If they knew! I wish that this waiting was over! I wish my father would come! This delay makes me so nervous and so jumpy. It’s like sitting in a dentist’s drawing-room! I sincerely hope that anticipation will prove to be the worst part of the business. Miss Harper is coming. I hear her heavy step! No—I breathe again. Only fancy, she asked me yesterday, with one of her old sharp looks, whom I was always writing to? and I was fortunate to have so many friends—such wonderful correspondents! With a kind of sneer, then, she said, ‘I’m going out, and I may as well post your letter,’ but I need not tell you that I declined her amiable offer, and posted it myself. You say that baby screams at night, and must be consigned to an outhouse, if he continues to make night hideous. How inhuman of you, Laurence, to write such horrid things, even in joke! Do you think he could possibly be missing me, or is this a foolish idea with respect to an infant of five months old? Ask Mrs. Holt to feel his gums. Perhaps it is a tooth? And now good-bye, with many kisses to him, and kind remembrances to the Holts.
“I am, your loving wife,
“M. W.”
Very shortly after this letter was despatched Mrs. Harper received a telegram from the agents to say that the Ophir was expected at Plymouth the next afternoon.
What a fuss ensued, what rushing and running and packing, and calling for twine and luggage labels, and leather straps and sandwiches on the part of an excited spinster, who was enchanted at the prospect of a jaunt down to Devonshire—all expenses paid. Once fairly off, and away from her own familiar beat, she was little better than a child. It was not Miss Harper who looked after Madeline, but Madeline who took care of her. At every big station she was seized with a panic, and called out, “Porter, where are we now? How long do we stop? Do we change? Is the luggage all right?” Her fussy flight to the refreshment-rooms, and frantic dashes back to the carriage—usually the wrong one—was amusing to her fellow-travellers, but not to Madeline; and, besides this, her shrill and constant chatter about “your father,” “I do hope the Ophir won’t be late,” “she is a splendid steamer, 10,000-horse power,” “and I hope they have had a good passage,” made her former pupil feel a keen desire to say something cross, knowing that Miss Harper imagined that she was impressing the other inmates of the carriage, but in reality was making herself supremely ridiculous.
Madeline was thankful when they were safely housed (luggage and all) in the best hotel in Plymouth. Miss Harper had only forgotten her umbrella in the train, and lost a considerable share of her temper in consequence, but a good dinner and a good night’s rest made this all right, and she wore a smiling face as she and her charge and many other people went down the next morning to board the newly-arrived Orient Liner Ophir.
To a stranger it was a most bewildering scene, and Miss Harper and Madeline stared about them helplessly; but of course the new arrivals were readily singled out by the passengers, and Mr. West had no hesitation whatever in promptly selecting the prettiest girl who had come up the side as his own daughter.