It was a real disappointment, so much did he like the look of both of them, so admirably did their ages fit in with his and Billy’s, to be told they were not going to stay there but had only come over from St. Lawrence, where they had a cottage, to get some food to take with them on a walk.
Both the Jerrolds’ faces fell at this. Billy’s broad smile seemed to contract by about half a yard. She had two long rows of very white teeth, endless rows they seemed, so wide was her smile, and they looked even whiter than they were because the sea wind had tanned her face. Her eyes, too, looked bluer than they were for the same reason, and the sunshine of a week spent hatless had bleached her hair the colour of flax. She was a sturdy creature, firm on solid ankles, and not particularly pretty, but as she stood there bareheaded, and the wind blew her fair hair across her forehead, and she smiled immensely at everybody, she fitted in with complete harmony to the young jollity of the morning and the month.
Christopher thought she looked like a good-natured young shark.
‘What an awful pity,’ she said. ‘We might have gone for excursions together.’
And she said it with such a heartiness of chagrin that they all laughed.
The end of it was that when the sandwiches came and the Moncktons went, the Jerrolds, still talking, went with them, first to the entrance of the hotel garden, then into the road, then, still talking, along the road.
The Jerrolds not having talked for a week were unable now to leave off. Mr. Jerrold found himself wishing to tell the small agreeable lady who he was, and why, and how, and did so with a completeness that surprised himself. His daughter, striding on ahead with the young man—they seemed naturally to shoot ahead together, the two young ones, the minute they got on to the road—explained just as completely to her companion, who appeared at once to tumble to it, the dreadful feeling of being about to burst after a week’s flopping round with somebody who couldn’t be left while one rushed all over the island, and couldn’t, owing to age and infirmity and being a father and all that, rush too.
‘Just look at those youngsters forging along,’ said Mr. Jerrold, smiling complacently at the two figures in front, at their four worsted-stockinged legs moving so quickly in step, at their swinging arms, and their bare heads turned to each other while they talked and laughed.
His companion looked, but said nothing. He wondered what relation she was to the young man that she too should be a Monckton, and decided that she must be either his father’s second wife or his aunt by marriage. Not a blood relation, clearly; they were too much unlike.
‘Is there anything more delightful in the world,’ said Mr. Jerrold, gazing benevolently at the pair ahead, ‘than a wholesome English boy and girl?’