CHAPTER XVII.
AFTERNOON TEA
When he had turned and left her, Elizabeth faced her sisters with that vivid blush still on her cheeks, and a general appearance of embarrassment that was too novel to escape notice. Patty and Eleanor stared for a moment, and Eleanor laughed.
"Who is he?" she inquired saucily.
"I don't know," said Elizabeth. "Where have you been, dears? How have you got on? I have been so anxious about you."
"But who is he?" persisted Eleanor.
"I have not the least idea, I tell you. Perhaps Mr. Brion knows."
"No," said Mr. Brion. "He is a perfect stranger to me."
"He is a new arrival, I suppose," said Elizabeth, stealing a backward glance at her hero, whom the others were watching intently as he walked away. "Yes, he can have but just arrived, for he saw the last stone put to the building of Cologne Cathedral, and that was not more than six or seven weeks ago. He has come out to see the Exhibition, probably. He seems to be a great traveller."
"Oh," said Eleanor, turning with a grimace to Patty, "here have we been mooning about in the gardens, and she has been seeing everything, and having adventures into the bargain!"
"It is very little I have seen," her elder sister remarked, "and this will tell you the nature of my adventures" – and she showed them a rent in her gown. "I was nearly torn to pieces by the crowd after you left. I am only too thankful you were out of it."
"But we are not at all thankful," pouted Eleanor. "Are we, Patty?" (Patty was silent, but apparently amiable.) "It is only the stitching that is undone – you can mend it in five minutes. We wouldn't have minded little trifles of that sort – not in the least – to have seen the procession, and made the acquaintance of distinguished travellers. Were there many more of them about, do you suppose?"
"O no," replied Elizabeth, promptly. "Only he."
"And you managed to find him! Why shouldn't we have found him too – Patty and I? Do tell us his name, Elizabeth, and how you happened on him, and what he has been saying and doing."
"He took care of me, dear – that's all. I was crushed almost into a pulp, and he allowed me to – to stand beside him until the worst of it was over."
"How interesting!" ejaculated Eleanor. "And then he talked to you about Cologne Cathedral?"
"Yes. But never mind about him. Tell me where Mr. Brion found you, and what you have been doing."
"Oh, we have not been doing anything – far from it. I wish you knew his name, Elizabeth."
"But, my dear, I don't. So leave off asking silly questions. I daresay we shall never see or hear of him again."
"Oh, don't you believe it! I'm certain we shall see him again. He will be at the Exhibition some day when we go there – to-morrow, very likely."
"Well, well, never mind. What are we going to do now?"
They consulted with Paul for a few minutes, and he took them where they could get a distant view of the crowds swarming around the Exhibition, and hear the confused clamour of the bands – which seemed to gratify the two younger sisters very much, in the absence of more pronounced excitement. They walked about until they saw the Royal Standard hoisted over the great dome, and heard the saluting guns proclaim that the Exhibition was open; and then they returned to Myrtle Street, with a sense of having had breakfast in the remote past, and of having spent an enormously long morning not unpleasantly, upon the whole.
Mrs. M'Intyre was standing at her gate when they reached home, and stopped them to ask what they had seen, and how they had enjoyed themselves. She had stayed quietly in the house, and busied herself in the manufacture of meringues and lemon cheese-cakes – having, she explained, superfluous eggs in the larder, and a new lodger coming in; and she evidently prided herself upon her well-spent time. "And if you'll stay, you shall have some," she said, and she opened the gate hospitably. "Now, don't say no, Miss King – don't, Miss Nelly. It's past one, and I've got a nice cutlet and mashed potatoes just coming on the table. Bring them along, Mr. Brion. I'm sure they'll come if you ask them."
"We'll come without that," said Eleanor, walking boldly in. "At least, I will. I couldn't resist cutlets and mashed potatoes under present circumstances – not to speak of lemon cheese-cakes and meringues – and your society, Mrs. M'Intyre."
Paul held the gate open, and Elizabeth followed Eleanor, and Patty followed Elizabeth. Patty did not look at him, but she was in a peaceable disposition; seeing which, he felt happier than he had been for months. They lunched together, with much enjoyment of the viands placed before them, and of each other's company, feeling distinctly that, however small had been their share in the demonstrations of the day, the festival spirit was with them; and when they rose from the table there was an obvious reluctance to separate.
"Now, I'll tell you what," said Eleanor; "we have had dinner with you, Mrs. M'Intyre, and now you ought to come and have afternoon tea with us. You have not been in to see us for years."
She looked at Elizabeth, who hastened to endorse the invitation, and Mrs. M'Intyre consented to think about it.
"And may not I come too?" pleaded Paul, not daring to glance at his little mistress, but appealing fervently to Elizabeth. "Mayn't I come with Mrs. M'Intyre for a cup of tea, too?"
"Of course you may," said Elizabeth, and Eleanor nodded acquiescence, and Patty gazed serenely out of the window. "Go and have your smoke comfortably, and come in in about an hour."
With which the sisters left, and, as soon as they reached their own quarters, set to work with something like enthusiasm to make preparations for their expected guests. Before the hour was up, a bright fire was blazing in their sitting-room, and a little table beside it was spread comfortably with a snow-white cloth, and twinkling crockery and spoons. The kettle was singing on the hearth, and a plate of buttered muffins reposed under a napkin in the fender. The window was open; so was the piano. Patty was flying from place to place, with a duster in her hand, changing the position of the chairs, and polishing the spotless surfaces of the furniture generally, with anxious industry. She had not asked Paul Brion to come to see them, but since he was coming they might as well have the place decent, she said.
When he came at last meekly creeping upstairs at Mrs. M'Intyre's heels, Patty was nowhere to be seen. He looked all round as he crossed the threshold, and took in the delicate air of cheerfulness, the almost austere simplicity and orderliness that characterised the little room, and made it quite different from any room he had ever seen; and then his heart sank, and a cloud of disappointment fell over his eager face. He braced himself to bear it. He made up his mind at once that he had had his share of luck for that day, and must not expect anything more. However, some minutes later, when Mrs. M'Intyre had made herself comfortable by unhooking her jacket, and untying her bonnet strings, and when Elizabeth was preparing to pour out the tea, Patty sauntered in with some needlework in her hand – stitching as she walked – and took a retired seat by the window. He seized upon a cup of tea and carried it to her, and stood there as if to secure her before she could escape again. As he approached she bent her head lower over her work, and a little colour stole into her face; and then she lifted herself up defiantly.
"Here is your tea, Miss Patty," he said, humbly.
"Thanks. Just put it down there, will you?"
She nodded towards a chair near her, and he set the cup down on it carefully. But he did not go.
"You are very busy," he remarked.
"Yes," she replied, shortly. "I have wasted all the morning. Now I must try to make up for it."
"Are you too busy to play something – presently, I mean, when you have had your tea? I must go and work too, directly. I should so enjoy to hear you play before I go."
She laid her sewing on her knee, reached for her cup, and began to sip it with a relenting face. She asked him what kind of music he preferred, and he said he didn't care, but he thought he liked "soft things" best. "There was a thing you played last Sunday night," he suggested; "quite late, just before you went to bed. It has been running in my head ever since."
She balanced her teaspoon in her hand, and puckered her brows thoughtfully. "Let me think – what was I playing on Sunday night?" she murmured to herself. "It must have been one of the Lieder surely – or, perhaps, a Beethoven sonata? Or Batiste's andante in G perhaps?"
"Oh, I don't know the name of anything. I only remember that it was very lovely and sad."
"But we shouldn't play sad things in the broad daylight, when people want to gossip over their tea," she said, glancing at Mrs. M'Intyre, who was energetically describing to Elizabeth the only proper way of making tomato sauce. But she got up, all the same, and went over to the piano, and began to play the andante just above a whisper, caressing the soft pedal with her foot.
"Was that it?" she asked gently, smiling at him as he drew up a low wicker chair and sat down at her elbow to listen.
"Go on," he murmured gratefully. "It was like that."
And she went on – while Mrs. M'Intyre, having concluded her remarks upon tomato sauce, detailed the results of her wide experience in orange marmalade and quince jelly, and Elizabeth and Eleanor did their best to profit by her wisdom – playing to him alone. It did not last very long – a quarter of an hour perhaps – but every moment was an ecstasy to Paul Brion. Even more than the music, delicious as it was, Patty's gentle and approachable mood enchanted him. She had never been like that to him before. He sat on his low chair, and looked up at her tender profile as she drooped a little over the keys, throbbing with a new sense of her sweetness and beauty, and learning more about his own heart in those few minutes than all the previous weeks and months of their acquaintance had taught him. And then the spell that had been weaving and winding them together, as it seemed to him, was suddenly and rudely broken. There was a clatter of wheels and hoofs along the street, a swinging gate and a jangling door bell; and Eleanor, running to the window, uttered an exclamation that effectually wakened him from his dreams.
"Oh, Elizabeth – Patty —it is Mrs. Duff-Scott!"
In another minute the great lady herself stood amongst them, rustling over the matting in her splendid gown, almost filling the little room with her presence. Mrs. M'Intyre gave way before her, and edged towards the door with modest, deprecatory movements, but Paul stood where he had risen, as stiff as a poker, and glared at her with murderous ferocity.
"You see I have come back, my dears," she exclaimed, cordially, kissing the girls one after the other. "And I am so sorry I could not get to you in time to make arrangements for taking you with me to see the opening – I quite intended to take you. But I only returned last night."
"Oh, thank you," responded Elizabeth, with warm gratitude, "it is treat enough for us to see you again." And then, hesitating a little as she wondered whether it was or was not a proper thing to do, she looked at her other guests and murmured their names. Upon which Mrs. M'Intyre made a servile curtsey, unworthy of a daughter of a free country, and Paul a most reluctant inclination of the head. To which again Mrs. Duff-Scott responded by a slight nod and a glance of good-humoured curiosity at them both.
"I'll say good afternoon, Miss King," said Mr. Brion haughtily.
"Oh, good afternoon," replied Elizabeth, smiling sweetly. And she and her sisters shook hands with him and with his landlady, and the pair departed in some haste, Paul in a worse temper than he had ever known himself to indulge in; and he was not much mollified by the sudden appearance of Elizabeth, as he was fumbling with the handle of the front door, bearing her evident if unspoken apologies for having seemed to turn him out.
"You will come with Mrs. M'Intyre another time," she suggested kindly, "and have some more music? I would have asked you to stay longer to-day, but we haven't seen Mrs. Duff-Scott for such a long time – "
"Oh, pray don't mention it," he interrupted stiffly. "I should have had to leave in any case, for my work is all behind-hand."
"Ah, that is because we have been wasting your time!"
"Not at all. I am only too happy to be of use – in the absence of your other friends."
She would not notice this little sneer, but said good-bye and turned to walk upstairs. Paul, ashamed of himself, made an effort to detain her. "Is there anything I can do for you, Miss King?" he asked, gruffly indeed, but with an appeal for forbearance in his eyes. "Do you want your books changed or anything?"
She stood on the bottom step of the stairs, and thought for a moment; and then she said, dropping her eyes, "I – I think you have a book that I should like to borrow – if I might."
"Most happy. What book is it?"
"It is one of Thackeray's. I think you told us you had a complete edition of Thackeray that some one gave you for a birthday present. I scarcely know which volume it is, but it has something in it about a man being hanged – and a crowd – " She broke off with an embarrassed laugh, hearing how oddly it sounded.
"You must mean the 'Sketches,'" he said. "There is a paper entitled 'Going to See a Man Hanged' in the 'London Sketches' – "
"That is the book I mean."
"All right – I'll get it and send it in to you at once – with pleasure."
"Oh, thank you. I'm so much obliged to you. I'll take the greatest care of it," she assured him fervently.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE FAIRY GODMOTHER
Elizabeth went upstairs at a run, and found Patty and Eleanor trying to make Mrs. Duff-Scott understand who Paul Brion was, what his father was, and his profession, and his character; how he had never been inside their doors until that afternoon, and how he had at last by mere accident come to be admitted and entertained. And Mrs. Duff-Scott, serene but imperious, was delivering some of her point-blank opinions upon the subject.
"Don't encourage him, my dears – don't encourage him to come again," she was saying as Elizabeth entered the room. "He and his father are two very different people, whatever they may think."
"We cannot help being grateful to him," said Patty sturdily. "He has done so much for us."
"Dear child, that's nonsense. Girls can't be grateful to young men – don't you see? It is out of the question. And now you have got me to do things for you."
"But he helped us when we had no one else."
"Yes, that's all right, of course. No doubt it was a pleasure to him – a privilege – for him to be grateful for rather than you. But – well, Elizabeth knows what I mean" – turning an expressive glance towards the discreet elder sister. Patty's eyes went in the same direction, and Elizabeth answered both of them at once.
"You must not ask us to give up Paul Brion," she said, promptly.
"I don't," said Mrs. Duff-Scott. "I only ask you to keep him in his place. He is not the kind of person to indulge with tea and music, you know – that is what I mean."
"You speak as if you knew something against him," murmured Patty, with heightened colour.
"I know this much, my dear," replied the elder woman, gravely; "he is a friend of Mrs. Aarons's."
"And is not Mrs. Aarons – "
"She is very well, in her way. But she likes to have men dangling about her. She means no harm, I am sure," added Mrs. Duff-Scott, who, in the matter of scandal, prided herself on being a non-conductor, "but still it is not nice, you know. And I don't think that her men friends are the kind of friends for you. You don't mind my speaking frankly, my love? I am an old woman, you know, and I have had a great deal of experience."
She was assured that they did not mind it, but were, on the contrary, indebted to her for her good advice. And the subject of Paul Brion was dropped. Patty was effectually silenced by that unexpected reference to Mrs. Aarons, and by the rush of recollections, embracing him and her together, which suddenly gave form and colour to the horrible idea of him as a victim to a married woman's fascinations. She turned away abruptly, with a painful blush that not only crimsoned her from throat to temples, but seemed to make her tingle to her toes; and, like the headlong and pitiless young zealot that she was, determined to thrust him out for ever from the sacred precincts of her regard. Mrs. Duff-Scott was satisfied too. She was always sure of her own power to speak plainly without giving offence, and she found it absolutely necessary to protect these ingenuous maidens from their own ignorance. Needless to say that, since she had adopted them into her social circle, she had laid plans for their ultimate settlement therein. In her impulsive benevolence she had even gone the length of marking down the three husbands whom she considered respectively appropriate to the requirements of the case, and promised herself a great deal of interest and pleasure in the vicarious pursuit of them through the ensuing season. Wherefore she was much relieved to have come across this obscure writer for the press, and to have had the good chance, at the outset of her campaign, to counteract his possibly antagonistic influence. She knew her girls quite well enough to make sure that her hint would take its full effect.
She leaned back in her chair comfortably, and drew off her gloves, while they put fresh tea in the teapot, and cut her thin shavings of bread and butter; and she sat with them until six o'clock, gossiping pleasantly. After giving them a history of the morning's ceremonies, as witnessed by the Government's invited guests inside the Exhibition building, she launched into hospitable schemes for their enjoyment of the gay time that had set in. "Now that I am come back," she said, "I shall take care that you shall go out and see everything there is to be seen. You have never had such a chance to learn something of the world, and I can't allow you to neglect it."
"Dear Mrs. Duff-Scott," said Elizabeth, "we have already been indulging ourselves too much, I am afraid. We have done no reading – at least none worth doing – for days. We are getting all behind-hand. The whole of yesterday and all this morning – "
"What did you do this morning?" Mrs. Duff-Scott interrupted quickly.
They gave her a sketch of their adventures, merely suppressing the incident of the elder sister's encounter with the mysterious person whom the younger ones had begun to style "Elizabeth's young man" – though why they suppressed that none of them could have explained.
"Very well," was her comment upon the little narrative, which told her far more than it told them. "That shows you that I am right. There are a great many things for you to learn that all the books in the Public Library could not teach you. Take my advice, and give up literary studies for a little while. Give them up altogether, and come and learn what the world and your fellow-creatures are made of. Make a school of the Exhibition while it lasts, and let me give you lessons in – a – what shall I call it – social science? – the study of human nature?"
Nothing could be more charming than to have lessons from her, they told her; and they had intended to go to school to the Exhibition as often as they could. But – but their literary studies were their equipment for the larger and fuller life that they looked forward to in the great world beyond the seas. Perhaps she did not understand that?
"I understand this, my dears," the matron replied, with energy. "There is no greater mistake in life than to sacrifice the substance of the present for the shadow of the future. We most of us do it – until we get old – and then we look back to see how foolish and wasteful we have been, and that is not much comfort to us. What we've got, we've got; what we are going to have nobody can tell. Lay in all the store you can, of course – take all reasonable precautions to insure as satisfactory a future as possible – but don't forget that the Present is the great time, the most important stage of your existence, no matter what your circumstances may be."
The girls listened to her thoughtfully, allowing that she might be right, but suspending their judgment in the matter. They were all too young to be convinced by another person's experience.
"You let Europe take care of itself for a bit," their friend proceeded, "and come out and see what Australia in holiday time is like, and what the fleeting hour will give you. I will fetch you to-morrow for a long day at the Exhibition to begin with, and then I'll – I'll – " She broke off and looked from one to another with an unwonted and surprising embarrassment, and then went on impetuously.
"My dears, I don't know how to put it so as not to hurt or burden you, but you won't misunderstand me if I express myself awkwardly – you won't have any of that absurd conventional pride about not being under obligations – it is a selfish feeling, a want of trust and true generosity, when it is the case of a friend who – " She stammered and hesitated, this self-possessed empress of a woman, and was obviously at a loss for words wherein to give her meaning. Elizabeth, seeing what it was that she wanted to say, sank on her knees before her, and took her hands and kissed them. But over her sister's bent head Patty stood up stiffly, with a burning colour in her face. Mrs. Duff-Scott, absently fondling Elizabeth, addressed herself to Patty when she spoke again.
"As an ordinary rule," she said, "one should not accept things from another who is not a relation – I know that. Not because it is improper – it ought to be the most proper thing in the world for people to help each other – but because in so many cases it can never happen without bitter mortifications afterwards. People are so – so superficial? But I – Patty, dear, I am an old woman, and I have a great deal of money, and I have no children; and I have never been able to fill the great gap where the children should be with music and china, or any interest of that sort. And you are alone in the world, and I have taken a fancy to you – I have grown fond of you – and I have made a little plan for having you about me, to be a sort of adopted daughters for whom I could feel free to do little motherly things in return for your love and confidence in me. You will indulge me, and let me have my way, won't you? It will be doing more for me, I am sure, than I could do for you."
"O no – no —no!" said Patty, with a deep breath, but stretching her hands with deprecating tenderness towards their guest. "You would do everything for us, and we could do nothing for you. You would overwhelm us! And not only that; perhaps – perhaps, by-and-bye, you would not care about us so much as you do now – we might want to do something that you didn't like, something we felt ourselves obliged to do, however much you disliked it – and if you got vexed with us, or tired of us – oh, think what that would be! Think how you would regret that you had – had – made us seem to belong to you. And how we should hate ourselves."
She looked at Mrs. Duff-Scott with a world of ardent apology in her eyes, before which the matron's fell, discouraged and displeased.
"You make me feel that I am an impulsive and romantic girl, and that you are the wise old woman of the world," she said with a proud sigh.
But at this, Patty, pierced to the heart, flung her arms round Mrs. Duff-Scott's neck, and crushed the most beautiful bonnet in Melbourne remorselessly out of shape against her young breast. That settled the question, for all practical purposes. Mrs. Duff-Scott went home at six o'clock, feeling that she had achieved her purpose, and entered into some of the dear privileges of maternity. It was more delightful than any "find" of old china. She did not go to sleep until she had talked both her husband and herself into a headache with her numerous plans for the welfare of her protégées, and until she had designed down to the smallest detail the most becoming costumes she could think of for them to wear, when she took them with her to the Cup.