Sweethearts at Home

XIX
THE DISCONTENT OF MRS. NIPPER DONNAN

When Mr. Robert Fortinbras heard of his daughter's determination, he declared that he renounced her for ever. But after thinking the matter over, and especially on being reminded by Hugh John that one day she would become heiress of no mean part of the Donnan wealth, he consented to a limited forgiveness, on condition that in the meantime she should do something for her father and mother. But her sister Matilda openly revolted, saying that she always knew Elizabeth meant to shove the housework off on her, and that she did not care if not a dish was ever washed in that house again. Elizabeth reminded her that, far from idling at New Erin Villa, she was on foot from morning till night. Also that nine times out of ten when she came home she found Matilda asleep on the sofa, with a penny novelette flung on the floor beside her. There was a feeling of strain for a moment, but Elizabeth presented her sister with a striped blouse and half-a-dozen stand-up collars, which promptly brought forth the declaration, "Oh, Elizabeth, you mustn't mind what I say. It is only mother's nagging that does it, but I do love you!" Which may or may not have had to do with the striped blouse and the half-dozen collars. On the whole, there was a certain feeling of satisfaction in the house of Mr. Robert Fortinbras that Elizabeth was so well provided for, and that in a day of trouble she might even assist the brilliant adventurer with some of the gold of that unimaginative citizen, Mr. Ex-Butcher Donnan.

But Miss Elizabeth Fortinbras, though the best daughter in the world – with only one exception that I know of personally – had no idea of encouraging the busy idleness of her father, or the foolishness of the rest of the family. She had found a business that suited her, and she would in nowise interest herself less in it now that she was, so to speak, the present partner and future heiress in the concern.

There was but one person discontented, Mrs. Nipper Donnan. She was jealous of the white-curtained cottage, the trim garden, which began to blossom where she had hung out her clothes. Chiefly, however, she hated Elizabeth Fortinbras and "that Hugh John Picton Smith," who, strangely enough, was her abhorrence – though it was not his habit to ignore any one, but only to pass on his way with a grave bow.

Hugh John was an uncomfortable person to quarrel with. His great bodily strength and long practice in the art of boxing rendered him a man of peace whose very presence made for reconciliation. In the neighborhood of Edam he was President Roosevelt's "moral policeman with a big stick." Even at home he held over the head of an offender a baton of honor and "the right thing to do."

At school, it is to be feared that his discipline was sterner. There he argued but seldom. He was the centurion who said, "Do this!" and the other fellow did it. But then, it was a good thing to do, and the head master generally considered him as his best ally.

He was father's constant companion on his walks, and to hear them debate in that precious half-hour in the dining-room after dinner was to escape suddenly from the smallness of the world about, and find oneself on the high Alps of thought where the sun shone early and late, where the winds blew clean and cold, and thought was free exceedingly. Neither counted anything as to be accepted merely because they had been told it upon authority. They searched and compared, the man and the boy, Hugh John's finely analytic mind steadied and gripped by the elder experience. Their talk was not the talk of father and son, but rather of two seekers – Hugh John declaiming high, direct, often fierce, while through the smoke of a contemplative cigarette father went on smiling gently, now waving a hand in gentle deprecation, dropping a word of moderation here, qualifying a statement there – the son holding strictly for law and justice, of the firmest and most inexorable, the father dropping counsels of mercy and that understanding which is the forgiveness of God, being, as always, a Tolerant of the Tolerants.

I know that those who have read the two books called after Sir Toady Lion may fail a little to recognize my elder brother. But nevertheless this is the same who in his time wept because as a little child with a wooden sword he had been saluted by the Scots Grays, the same also who fought the "smoutchies"; and if I have said nothing about a certain notable Cissy Carter, it is only because, though I know, in the meantime I have promised not to tell.

It will easily be understood that with such an adversary Mrs. Nipper Donnan, ex-kitchen-maid at Erin Villa, stood little chance. Hugh John listened patiently and gravely, his head slightly bent in the pensive and contemplative way which was then his principal charm. He heard that he had interfered where he had no business, that Mrs. Nipper Donnan knew that he had always hated her husband, that, while as good as engaged to Colonel Carter's daughter, he was walking the lanes with Elizabeth Fortinbras – yes, and plotting and planning to get a fortune for her – a fortune which would make beggars of her husband and herself, and strip an only son of his inheritance.

To the angry woman Hugh John made no reply. He only kept silence, with that gentle irony which is his present manner with those who grow quarrelsome – that is, if they are not of his own sex and (approximately) age.

He only called Nipper – and by a series of questions ascertained from him that he knew how Hugh John had been the means of obtaining better terms for him than he had ever hoped for, since his marriage had so offended his father. Hugh John Picton Smith could speak no lie. He, Nipper Donnan, would uphold this against all comers. Even in the days of the smoutchies and the prison vault at the old Castle in the Edam Water he had known it. Even his very enemies had known it, and had taken Hugh John's word before the sworn oath of any one of themselves. He would take it now, and as to his wife, if she said another word – out of the shop she should go! She did go, slamming the door behind her. Nipper stepped across and shot a bar with a jarring sound heard all over the house. Then from behind the counter he thrust forth a hand, hard and massive, towards Hugh John, who took it in his strong grip. They looked at each other in the face, eye to eye. There was a slight shrug of Nipper's shoulders and a toss of his head in the direction of the barred door, which said that a man could not be responsible for his womankind, but as for themselves, had they not fought far too often and too fairly ever to go behind backs to do each other an injury?

XX
TREACHERY!

To-day Hugh John let me see a letter which he had received from Cissy Carter in Paris. As no one will see my diary, and also because there is nothing very private in the letter, I have jotted down as much as I can remember in my locked book. It was written from number twenty of the Avenue d'Argenson, and the date was the day before yesterday. It began without any greetings (as was their custom).

"Hugh John – People have written to me about you and Elizabeth Fortinbras – not nice people like you, me, and the Rat" (this was their unkind and meaningless name for – me, Miss Priscilla Picton Smith). "I don't much care what any one writes, of course. For I know that if ever you change your mind, you will do as you said, and send back your half of the crooked sixpence. You need not put in a word along with it. Only just send the half of the sixpence by the registered letter post, and I shall understand. I promise to do the same by you. – Cissy."

Now it must long have been clear that my brother Hugh John is as careless about his own concerns as he is careful for other people. He naturally took Cissy at her word, and having a conscience quite void of reproach with regard to Elizabeth Fortinbras or any other, very naturally thought no more about the matter.

But he should have been cautious how he disposed of the letter – in the fire, for choice. Only, you see, that was not Hugh John's way. He stuck it in his pocket-book, and pulled it out with his handkerchief just in time for Mrs. Nipper Donnan, on her way home with her groceries, to find it. In the little skin-covered book (which had once been "imitation shark"), wrapped in a piece of tissue-paper, was also the half of a crooked sixpence.

Next morning but two, in far-away Paris, in front of a tall plastered house with big barren windows, Miss Cecilia Carter, walking to and fro with two of her companions, had an odd-looking, ill-addressed packet put into her hand. She opened it with a little glow of expectation – and there in her hand lay the other half of the crooked sixpence!

Cissy Carter did not faint. She did not cry out. There is no record, even, that she went pale. At any rate the school registers bear out the fact that a quarter of an hour after she took her lesson in "theory" from the music-master, Herr Rohrs. She only felt that something had broken within her – something not to be mended or ever set right, something she could not even have the relief of speaking about as the French girls did, rhapsodizing eternally about the officers who rode past the gate, slacking the speed of their horses a little that they might stare up the avenue along which the young girls walked two-and-two, also on the look-out for them.

She had told Hugh John often just what had happened. She had cast it in his face, when the pretty spite of her temper got the better of her, that, some day or other, it would come to this. But in her heart of hearts she had never really thought so for a moment.

Hugh John untrue! Oh, no! That was impossible! It did not enter into the scheme of things.

Yes, certainly, twice, in a fit of "the pet," she had sent hers back to Hugh John. But this was different – oh, so different! How different, only those who knew Hugh John could understand. When he did such a thing, he meant something by it. Hugh John had no silly flashes of temper – like a girl – like her, Cissy Carter.

So she thought to herself as she went about her work, the rodent which we children call the "Sorrow Rat" gnawing all day at her heart, the noise of the class-rooms, ordinarily so deafening, dull and distant in her ear.

All over! Yes, it was all over. Hugh John had wished it so, and from that, she well knew, there was no appeal! And there was (I know it well) one sad little heart the more in that great city of Paris, where (if one must believe the books) there are too many already.

But Cissy did not take offense, and I had my weekly letter as usual. Perhaps it was a little more staid, a little less "newsy," and her interest in Herr Rohrs not quite so profound. But really I put all that down to the cold and headache of which Cissy complained in a postscript – and, not even there, was there a hint as to the other half of the crooked sixpence! Which is a record for one woman – girl, I mean – writing to another.

Hugh John was anything but sentimental, and it was not his habit to take out the relic wrapped in the tissue-paper oftener than the rearrangement of his scanty finances compelled. He would just give his pocket a slap, and if he felt a lump – why, he thought no more about the matter. He was preparing for college, and, knowing no reason why he should be uneasy, he had immersed himself in his books. He had not the smallest idea that the sharkskin purse, empty, lay in Mrs. Nipper Donnan's drawer, or that the two pieces of the crooked sixpence were wrapped together in the same tissue-paper in far-away Paris.

XXI
ADA WINTER AND "YOUNG MRS. WINTER"

While these things were pending, I went one day to the north side of Edam Water to call upon Ada Winter. I had known Ada at school – not in the same class or term, of course, but just because we came from the same place we nodded, if we were not in too great a hurry, when we crossed each other in the playground.

It was not much, but I have noticed that you get more fond of school after you have left it a while. Before, it was "the beastly hole," "Treadmill House," and other pretty little innocent names. Immediately after leaving school, however, it became "the dear old place," a little walled Paradise; and we used to go regularly to the station to see the girls who were still there going off "with smiling faces veiling sad hearts," as Hugh John said – and, of course, as I know now, wishing us all at Jericho.

At any rate I called upon Ada Winter, and among other things we talked about the choir practice at our church, and I asked Ada why she did not go. You see, she had been with me in the school choir, where, as in most choirs, they put the pretty girls in front. (No, I shan't tell where I sat, not I!)

"Why," said Ada, with an inflection which would have been bitter but for its sadness, "why I can't go to choir practice is not because I have lost my voice, as mother tells everybody. But because mother wants to go herself! Some one has got to stay at home."

"But Mrs. Winter – but your mother," I began, "she does not – "

"I know – I know – you need not repeat it," cried Ada, feeling for her handkerchief in a quick, nervous way she always had. "Mother cannot sing a note, and every one there makes fun of the way she dresses! Oh, don't I know!"

And she dabbed at her eyes, while I tried to think of something to say – something that obstinately kept away. I wanted to comfort her, you see, but you have no idea till you have tried how difficult it is to comfort (or even to answer) a girl who talks about her mother like that.

Of course I knew very well that it was all true. Mrs. Winter's youthful toilettes and girlish airs were the talk of the "visiting" good wives of Edam – and very respectable and noticing women these were, even beyond the average of a Scottish "neighborhood" – half village, half town – which is, they say, the highest in the world.

The men thought Mrs. Winter merely "nice looking." A few found her even "nice," and mentioned the fact at home! (Poor ignorant wretches, they deserved what they got!) Was it not evident to every woman (with eyes) in the congregation that Mrs. Winter was obviously, and with malice aforethought, setting her cap at the Reverend Cosmo Huntly, the newly-elected minister of the parish kirk in Edam?

No matter! I had been brought up in the ancient way, and (at least knowingly) I had not forsaken it.

I thought of the "Honor thy father and thy mother," and during the rest of my visit the words lay uncomfortably in the background of my mind.

But for the moment old comradeship prevailed. Even a queer little shamefaced tenderness somehow came over me.

"Poor Ada," I said, "it is a shame. You never get anywhere! We have all the fun, and you have to stop on here in this pokey place!"

"Oh, no," said Ada, dry-eyed, "you forget. There are the hens. When any one calls, mother sends me out to the back to feed the hens!"

We were speaking quietly on the doorstep of a quiet old house in the little main street. The lobby was dusky behind, and the settled smell of ancient furniture, perfectly kept for generations, came through the open door to mingle with the sharp sting of tar, and boats, and the sea which breathed up from the tidal river as through a funnel.

As we stood together silent for a moment, both a little moved and strange, even with one another, we heard a quick, decided tread. And round the corner came Ada's mother, "Young Mrs. Winter" as she was called, to distinguish her from Ada's grandmother, "Old Mrs. Winter," who lived in the little cottage by the Ryecroft Bridge at the other end of the town.

"Come, Ada," said her mother, "take Prissy in if you want to speak to her. I thought I had told you how much I dislike your standing gossiping on doorsteps like servant maids."

"Thank you, Mrs. Winter," I said very quietly. "I must go home. Father will want me to pour out his tea."

And Ada Winter did not press me to stay, but only shut the door, with a glance at me, and a sigh as her mother rustled up-stairs to "change for the evening."

XXII
AN EVENING CALL

Now of course it is true that the people of Edam gossip about Young Mrs. Winter. But, to make things quite equal all round, Young Mrs. Winter can give any one of them points at their own game! And she has her own way of doing it too. She is never nasty about it, never spiteful. She looks far too plump for that. She is rather like those people in the Bible who make broad their phylacteries, and thank God in their prayers that they are not as other men are. It says "men" in the text (I looked it up), but I think it must have been women who were really meant. For, about Edam at least, it is mostly they who give thanks that they are not as other women are!

Well, at any rate, Young Mrs. Winter was that kind of gossip – oh, far too good-natured ever to say an ill word about any one! But, on the other hand, always "so very sorry" for the people she did not like that she left everybody with the impression that she was in possession of the darkest and deadliest secrets concerning them. Only she was so good and so kind that she only sympathized with these naughty people, instead of (as no doubt she could) putting them altogether outside the pale of society. She did this most often at afternoon teas. Then her sighs could be heard all over the room. They quenched conversation. They aroused curiosity, and in five minutes half tea-sipping Edam knew to how much original sin Miss So-and-so had recently added so many new and unedited actual transgressions. But for the unfortunate impression thus unwittingly given of course poor Young Mrs. Winter was by no means responsible. Indeed, she gently sighed as she went away. "It is such a pity!" she said feelingly, as her hostess accompanied her to the door.

Mrs. Winter the Younger dealt at Nipper Donnan's – both on account of the superior quality of the meat, and, still more, because there she encountered a kindred spirit – no, not the Reverend Cosmo Huntly, but Mrs. Nipper Donnan herself. It was not long before Young Mrs. Winter knew all about the abominable devices of Elizabeth Fortinbras, the terrible loss to the legitimate heir, Nipper, brought about by the cunning of a certain Hugh John, the weakness (if no worse) of the elder Donnans – in fact, all, and a great deal more, than Mrs. Nipper knew herself!

One evening, going into the shop during Nipper's absence on his "cattle-buying business" among the farms, Young Mrs. Winter found still younger Mrs. Donnan in a state of great excitement. She had just been wrapping up a parcel, and was aching for a confidant.

No, of course Young Mrs. Winter would never, never betray a secret. Was she not known and noted for that one thing? Had she not suffered grievously and been much spoken against for that very fault, if fault, indeed, it were? Mrs. Nipper might ask all Edam.

There was not, of course, time for that, because Mrs. Nipper was so keen on the track of a confidant.

It had to come out. The dam burst suddenly. There was now no means of holding it back. Meg Linwood's private sense of injustice was increased a thousandfold by the purring sympathy of Young Mrs. Winter.

No, indeed, she would not sit down under it. She was not now a "slavey" to be treated like that. She had had quite enough! And so on and so on. Young Mrs. Winter incautiously suggested an appeal to Mrs. Nipper's husband, and so very nearly cut off the whole book of the revelation in mid-gush.

"Oh, no!" cried Mrs. Nipper, "above all things Nipper must know nothing about it! He would not understand!"

Young Mrs. Winter threw up her hands with a little gesture of despair, as much as to say, "I do not quite see, in that case, what is to be done in the matter!"

Then came the dread secret.

"I have paid them off myself. But oh – it is a great secret! Nipper would never forgive me – he thinks so much of that Hugh John Picton Smith!"

"Tell me all about it," purred Young Mrs. Winter. "You know I never speak again of things which have been told me in confidence!"

And, indeed, there was more of truth in the statement than the lady herself was aware of. For there were but few people in Edam so foolish as to tell Young Mrs. Winter even what their chickens had had for dinner!

"Oh, they shall not mock at me any more," said Mrs. Nipper, half crying with anger, half trembling at her own temerity.

The Meg Linwood of the back kitchen had not got over her former wholesome dread of correction. And in her secret heart she always feared (and perhaps also a little hoped) that one day Nipper, put out of patience by her tricks, would snatch up a stick and give her the same sort of moral lesson by which the late Mr. Linwood had recalled his family to a sense of their duty. "They shall not mock at me – yes, I know they do – because I was once a servant." (How little she knew either Hugh John or Elizabeth, if the accusation were made seriously!) "But I have shown them that they cannot tamper with me!"

"But how – tell me how you did it?" said Young Mrs. Winter, sinking her voice to a whisper.

"I found a letter," said Meg in a solemn whisper, and putting her mouth close to the ear of her listener, "yes, a letter – from that Carter girl in Paris to Hugh John Picton Smith."

"Never!" cried Young Mrs. Winter, clasping her hands together in a kind of ecstasy. Then, fearing she had gone too far, she said, "I should like to see it, but I suppose you sent it back immediately."

"I did nothing of the kind," Meg Linwood giggled. "I would not be so soft, though I have only been a servant – a common slavey, washing pans in the scullery, while my lady, all dressed up fine, sold candy in the front shop, and talked to that Hugh John!"

Thus innocently did poor Meg Linwood lay bare to the experienced eyes of Young Mrs. Winter the secret springs of her jealousy.

"It is a shame," murmured that lady sympathetically but vaguely.

And so, with a little persuasion, Meg Linwood told the whole story of the twin halves of the crooked sixpence as related in the letter found in the sharkskin purse.

Young Mrs. Winter felt that perhaps never had virtue been more its own reward. She was in sole possession of a secret that would assuredly set all Edam by the ears.

Presently she made her excuses to Mrs. Nipper Donnan, all simmering with sympathy till she was round the corner. And then she actually picked up her skirts and ran.

She had so many calls to make, so much to tell, and so little time to do it in. No wonder that Young Mrs. Winter was almost crushed by the weight of her own responsibilities. Suppose that she were to fall sick, or get run over, dying untimely "with all her music in her," as the poet says.

Unfortunately nothing of the kind occurred. The people she called on were at home. Nay, more, they had friends. These friends, as soon as they had heard, jostled each other in the lobbies. Nay, so great was their haste to be gone that they made the rudest snatches at each other's umbrellas!

Thus quickly was the tale of the crooked sixpence spread about in Edam. You see, the Davenant Carters were the greatest people in the parish, all the more so for not living in the town. And as for Hugh John, he also, though less known, was a citizen of no mean city.

I think it must have been about eight o'clock of a summer night – it was after dinner, anyway – when a ring came to the door bell, and Cairns went in the dining-room where Hugh John was rearranging the universe with father while he smoked. I was at the organ looking over some music, and trying over little bits very, very softly. Because at that time it is not allowed to interrupt the talk.

"A young lady on a bicycle to speak to Mr. Hugh John!" said Cairns.

Luckily I had turned a little on the music-stool, so I did not lose a faintest detail of what followed. I saw the single mischievous dimple come and go at the corner of father's cheek, but, as is his silent way, he only flicked the ash off his cigarette with his little finger, and said nothing.

"Will you excuse me for a moment, father?" said Hugh John, always master of himself, and consequently, nine times out of ten, of the other person as well. Father nodded gravely, and Hugh John went out.

I would have given all I possessed – not usually much at most – to have accompanied my brother. But a look from father checked me. As you can see from his books, it is not so very long since he was young himself. Though, of course, he seems fearfully old to us, I know he does not feel that way himself.

So perforce I had to wait patiently, turning over that dreary music till somebody came into the room, and then I was released. I knew it was Elizabeth Fortinbras who was outside, but for all that I did not even go to the door to see.

After what seemed a very long while Hugh John came in. He was looking rather pale.

"Can I go to the Edam Post Office?" he asked. "I shall not be long."

But though he asked politely, he was gone almost before permission could be given.

He told me all about it when he came back. I had been at the window, and had seen Hugh John and Elizabeth Fortinbras ride off together. For any one who saw them there was but one thing to think. They looked so handsome that any other explanation seemed inadmissible. Only we at home knew different.

"Sis," he said, when at last we got out to the gun-room, which father uses occasionally for smoking in, "there never was a girl like Elizabeth Fortinbras!"

At this I whistled softly – a habit for which I am always being checked, and as often forgetting.

"And what about Cissy Carter?" I asked.

He looked at me once with a kind of "If-you-have-any-shame-in-thee, girl, prepare-to-shed-it-now" manner, before which I quailed. Then he told me how Elizabeth had ridden out to tell him of the treachery of Meg Linwood. Together they had made out an urgency telegram, had found the post-master, and had dispatched it to Paris that very night.

It said: "Half silver token lost. If sent you by mischievous persons, please return immediately to its owner, Hugh John Picton Smith."

"And that, I think, covers the case – she will understand!" said Elizabeth Fortinbras.

But low in her own heart, as she rode up the long steep street to New Erin Villa, she added the rider, "That is, if she is not a goose!"