Barbara Rebell

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

"So you've been up to see her? Against my very strict orders—orders, mind ye, given as Madam's medical man! Well, well! All I can say is, that I'm not responsible for what the consequences may be. Madam's not fit to be worried o'er business—not fit at all!" The words came out in sharp jerky sentences, and as he spoke Doctor McKirdy scowled at the young man, twisting his hands together, a trick he had when violently disturbed.

As the two culprits came towards him he broke out again, almost turning his back on them as he spoke, "I cannot think what possessed the man McGregor! He will have to be dismissed, not a doubt about it! He has the strictest, the very strictest orders—he must have been daft before he could take up a stranger to Madam's room!" There was a world of scorn in the way in which McKirdy pronounced the word "stranger."

Angry as Boringdon had now become, indignant with the old man for so attacking him in the presence of one who was, as Oliver did not fail to remind himself, the real stranger to all their concerns, he yet felt that to a certain extent the doctor's anger and indignation were justified. Boringdon knew well enough that, but for McKirdy's absence from the Priory that afternoon, he could never have penetrated into Madame Sampiero's presence. He had also been aware that McGregor was acting in direct contravention of the doctor's orders, and that nothing but his own grim determination to be obeyed had made the man take his note upstairs. All this being so, he was about to say something of a conciliatory nature, when suddenly Mrs. Rebell came forward—

"It is I," she said—and Boringdon saw that she showed no sign of quailing before Doctor McKirdy's furious looks—"who asked my god-mother to see Mr. Boringdon, and so it is I alone, Doctor McKirdy, who should be blamed for what has happened. Madame Sampiero asked my advice as to whether she should see him, and as the matter seemed urgent, I decided that she had better do so at once, instead of waiting, as I should perhaps have done, to ask you if she was fit to do so."

She looked inquiringly from one man to the other—at the old Scotchman whose face still twitched with rage, and whose look of aversion at herself she felt to be cruelly unjust, almost, she would have said, had she not become really fond of him, impertinent; and at Boringdon, who also looked angry, but not as surprised as she would have expected him to be before so strange an outburst.

There was a moment of tense silence, and then, suddenly, Barbara herself caught fire. Like most gentle, self-restrained natures, she was capable of feeling deep instant gusts of anger, and one of these now swept over her.

"If you will go up and see Madame Sampiero," she spoke very coldly, "I think you will admit, Doctor McKirdy, that my god-mother has not been in any way injured by seeing Mr. Boringdon." She turned, rather imperiously, to the young man. "I think," she said, "that now we had better go out. I suppose it will take at least half an hour to walk round by the Beeches, and later my god-mother will be expecting me back to read to her."

Without again glancing at Doctor McKirdy, Mrs. Rebell walked across to the vestibule, and so out into the open air, Boringdon following her rather shamefacedly, and in silence they struck off down the path which led round the great meadow-like enclosure to the broad belt of beeches which were the glory of Chancton Priory.

Then, somewhat to his own surprise, Boringdon found himself making excuses for the old Scotchman, while explaining to Mrs. Rebell the odd position in which he often found himself. The conversation which followed caused strides, which might otherwise have taken weeks or even months to achieve, in his own and Barbara's intimacy.

Very little was said of Grace Johnstone and of Santa Maria; it was of the Priory, and of its stricken mistress, of Chancton and of Doctor McKirdy, that they talked, and it was pleasant to Boringdon to hear his own part being taken to himself, to hear McKirdy severely censured in the grave low voice whose accents had sounded so sweetly in his ears when it had come to call him to Madame Sampiero's presence.