Chapter XIX: Boy and Girl

MR. MANNERS paid Brian the two hundred pounds, and took possession of the cottage. Hope thought it was all strangely pathetic. He looked like a fish out of water in his surroundings, for he had been so long in London that he had lost his country ways.

She passed by one day, and found him working in the garden in his tall silk hat; but she also noticed that his way of handling the plants was that of a garden-lover; and once she saw him raise a little piece of yellow jasmine upon the porch to his lips.

She turned away, afraid that he might see her.

"He has not outgrown his sentiment," she thought; and amidst all her intense anxiety about her own future, Miss Rill and her old lover occupied a big place in her thoughts.

Brian and she had a long discussion over Mr. Spencer's proposal.

"I can't think why, as a woman, you don't humour him."

"You refused to stay with him."

"That is different. Your stay would be only a temporary one. I pity the old fellow from the bottom of my heart. Nobody cares a rap about him, and he knows it. I should have thought your woman's heart would have been touched by him."

"So it was, but I cannot see that it is my duty to be his housekeeper."

Brian shrugged his shoulders, and Hope began to feel uncomfortable. As she had the hundred pounds, she could well afford to go to him for simply her board and lodging. She began to turn it over in her mind. Was she right to refuse an opportunity of brightening his life and befriending him, perhaps influencing him for good for the rest of his life? She pondered, and prayed about it. She knew that if Brian took his two small brothers out to Canada with him, he and they would want every penny of the small sum of money they had in hand. She asked him if he was certain that he could provide a home for Jerry and Toby.

"Won't they cripple you, when you first go out there? How can you provide for them when you do not know for certain where you are going?"

"Ah, but I know a woman who will look after them and send them to school with her boys. She wanted to keep them altogether when we were coming home, only father wouldn't hear of it. We have a lot of friends out there, and every one gives one a helping hand. It is so different here."

Hope sadly thought of the few friends she possessed who would offer her a helping hand at this juncture. Brian suggested her coming with them for a year, but she could not consent to do that. Her passage-money alone would be more than she could afford. For a week she thought over Mr. Spencer's offer; and then one morning she told Brian that she was going to accept it.

"I know you will be relieved," she said. "I can but leave if I find it is an impossible life; but I think I shall be doing right to give it a trial."

Brian went up to "The Retreat" with a light heart, to carry the news to the old Squire.

"He's a queer old chap," he said to Hope; "he seemed quite upset to think you were coming to him—had tears in his eyes. I think you'll do him a world of good. I shall hear of him giving tea-parties, when once you're settled there."

The days slipped quickly by. Hope was very busy mending and making clothes for the two small boys, in which task Kitty participated. She was delighted that she would not lose her friend, but told Hope frankly that she would be miserable with Mr. Spencer.

"He will starve you. He only has two pounds of meat for the whole week. Our butcher told me so; and he has no fires in winter, and no blankets on the beds. Oh, I've heard all about his establishment from a village girl who went up there to help Mrs. Hadley when she had been ill. Why do you go to him? You are too good to live! Why don't you come and stay with us? We should be proud to have you!"

Hope laughed at her. And then, whilst they were still discussing Mr. Spencer's "ménage," Brian came into the room.

Kitty appealed to him.

"Does Hope look as if she is fit to live on a quarter of a pound of meat a week? Why, I can almost see through her now!"

"Ah, well," said Brian, "we don't always have meat in the colonies."

"What do you live upon?"

"Bacon, porridge, potatoes, Indian corn."

"Lovely!"

Kitty's face was quite radiant.

"I know you do yourselves very well, and when you kill a sheep, you have meat five times a day, to make up for your vegetarian time."

Hope went out of the room to fetch something. Brian sat down in her chair, and looked at Kitty across the table.

"You think a colonial life play," he said.

"Do I? I know it is hard work, but it's healthy happy work, and makes men of good-for-nothing-boys who go out there."

"What would it make of you, if you came out there?"

Brian's eyes were twinkling, but there was purpose in his tone.

"Oh, I'm ready made," retorted Kitty, laughingly; "I don't want any more training."

Brian looked at her steadily for a moment or two, then he said:

"Kitty, if I get a home together in a year or so, will you come out and share it with me?"

Kitty flushed a deep red, then she looked up and laughed.

"Do you know that I haven't my hair up yet? Are you chaffing?"

"I'm in sober earnest."

Brian looked it.

"But I don't know what to say. Is it really and truly a proposal of marriage? You honestly want me to marry you?"

"I honestly want you to marry me. It isn't in my line to play the fool!"

"Oh, please don't be angry. I always say the wrong thing."

Kitty was frightened at the vehement flashing in Brian's brown eyes. She was silent for a moment. Then Brian said in a softened tone:

"I know I'm rough and dull. I seem as if all my life I have had no time to play. People tell me I'm old before my time, but I would be good to you, Kitty. I don't think you'd have a bad time with me."

"You're just altogether perfect!" said Kitty impulsively. "It's I who would be the stupid. I'm always getting into hot water at home for the things I say and do. I wonder if I really would make you a good wife. You deserve one, for you never think of yourself at all."

"I'm thinking of myself now," said Brian. "I suppose your father will say I have no right to speak to you. I haven't a penny at present to bless myself with, but I know I shall get work, and I know I shall get on out there. And you're a born colonist's wife, Kitty. We shouldn't have to wait very long."

"But," said Kitty, "you know I don't approve of engagements. You must say nothing to me till you're ready to marry me, and then I'll come out by the next boat."

Her eyes sparkled, then she said demurely:

"So we'll change the subject, please. Them's my sentiments!"

But Brian got up from his seat and went round to her.

"You'll have to seal your promise with a kiss."

"Oh, I couldn't!"

"You must."

He was holding her hands now, and Kitty, half-laughing, half-frightened, tried to get away from him.

"I shall be gone in two days' time," he said. "It is my right. I, shan't believe in you unless you give it to me."

He got what he wanted, and it was at this inopportune moment that Hope surprised them. She did not retire, for she was too astonished and perplexed to do so.

"Oh, Brian!" she exclaimed, with a world of reproach in her tone.

But Kitty held herself up bravely, and a little defiantly.

"It's all right. We've settled to marry each other one day," she said; "but we aren't going to talk any more about it. Have you brought the flannel, Hope?"

Her tone was too elaborately indifferent to be real. Hope could hardly help laughing. She was only a girl herself, and after the first shock of discovery, she was rather pleased than otherwise.

"You are both ridiculously young," she said, looking from Kitty's flushed cheeks and bright eyes to Brian's rather shamefaced demeanour; "but I would rather have you for a little sister, Kitty, than any one else in the world. And Brian and you will suit each other down to the ground. Only what will your father say? And when will Brian be able to offer you a home? Not for a long while, I fear."

"Oh, father will let me do exactly as I like. I know he will."

"Once I am out in Canada, I shall see my way," said Brian. "Good-night, Kitty. I consider that we are engaged to each other, and I shall go round to your father now, and tell him so."

Before she could offer any remonstrance, he was gone, and the mixture of feelings portrayed in Kitty's face as she turned to Hope in a helpless appealing sort of way, was almost comical.

"It's rather fun!" she said. "But it frightens one rather! Only Brian is such a splendid fellow, isn't he? Why, he's much too good for me—I never dreamt he did more than like me! Oh, it's quite delicious to think of going out to Canada and have a house of my own to keep tidy for him, and make him comfortable when he comes home tired!"

Hope shook her head with a smile.

"You make me feel so old, Kitty, to hear you talk! But I'm sure your father will say you are much too young for such things!"

"I'll put up my hair to-morrow, and let down my dresses. What will Avice say? Oh, Hope, I'm so excited that I could dance round the room."

Then she grew grave.

"But I won't be engaged to him. It's against my principles. People ought to be as free as air until they marry."

"You are a ridiculous child!" said Hope.

She wondered, as Kitty chattered on, if she felt any real love for Brian, or whether it was the Canadian home that fascinated her. But when the girl got up to go, she threw her arms round Hope's neck, and whispered in her ear:

"I will try to be good like you; I want to make him a good wife, I want to be steadier. Will you pray for me?"

And Hope answered:

"My darling Kitty, indeed I will. But I hope you won't take me as your pattern, for I am a poor specimen of what I ought to be."

Mr. Parr was too dumbfounded to speak when Brian told him, and Brian himself felt ashamed of his haste when he thought of his prospects.

"I ought to have gone away without speaking to her, but I shan't be home again for a good long time, and Kitty is so bright and attractive that I was afraid some one else would get a successful innings when I was away."

"I can't hear of an engagement at present between you," said Mr. Parr, with a troubled face. "Why, Kitty is a mere chit of a girl, with no character formed—a regular little harum-scarum—"

"She will be eighteen in two months' time, and has twice as much character as most girls of her age," said Brian.

The result of his talk was that Mr. Parr told him that he must not bind Kitty in any way. If he could offer her a comfortable home eventually, then was the time to make her a proposal, and then he would have no objection to the match.

Brian left the Vicarage downheartedly, and on the way back to his lodgings met Kitty. He repeated to her Mr. Parr's views on the subject, but she took it very lightheartedly.

"That's just what I told you myself. When you're ready to marry me, wire home and tell me so. Until then we'll go on as we are. You needn't be afraid of my marrying any one else. If a duke came along and asked me to, I wouldn't! And I'm no beauty, and nobody but you would care a rap for me!"

"But," said Brian gloomily, "I wanted you to write to me."

"Well, perhaps I shall. I'm not a good hand at writing. It always seems such waste of time, and as to love-letters, I couldn't send one to save my life! The more I feel, the less I can say, and father would object to any nonsense of that sort. But I do sometimes write to friends, and you shall be one of them."

"I don't believe you have any heart or care a bit!" Poor Brian was beside himself with excitement and disappointment.

Kitty looked at him with twinkling eyes, then she laid her hand gently on his arm.

"Don't you say those kind of things to me. I shall feel quite lost without you, and you know I shall. But we shall not be worth much if we can't wait for each other. You will have the easiest part to play, for you will be working, and every bit of work you do will be like a nail in our house. I shall be waiting in idleness, so I have by far the hardest part. Only—" here eagerness again took the place of tenderness in her tone—"I think I shall set to work to earn money, and start a chest, like the foreign girls, for our household linen. It will be great fun. I like plain work."

It was impossible for Kitty to be pensive; her active brain always provided so many fresh ideas that she was in a breathless state to carry them out before she forgot them.

Brian's gloom disappeared under her breezy practical common-sense.

And Hope, as she watched him packing up and making all his preparations for departure, with a smile on his lips, began to feel that she was wrong in doubting the wisdom of his untimely proposal.

"It will give him an object in life, and a hope for the future. And it will make Kitty into a woman, and take away much of her giddiness."

The last day came; the small boys clung to Hope in parting, and she recognised then that she had made an impression upon their lives. Brian wrung her hand.

"I can't thank you enough for all you've done for us. If old Spencer fails you, or Dane doesn't have you out as soon as you think, wire to me."

Hope smiled, but before she could reply, Jerry chimed in, "You come out to us, Hope! Come as a stowaway, if you find the passage too expensive. It's awful fun to hide yourself till the middle of the voyage, as the captain can't throw you overboard. He's bound to keep you and land you."

"Yes, and he wouldn't make a lady scrub and clean the decks," said Toby thoughtfully. "He would have to be polite to you!"

The boys' speeches took them away with a laugh instead of a cry, and then Hope bravely packed her boxes, and went off to "The Retreat." She found old Mr. Spencer really glad to see her. He had ineffectively attempted to have the house cleaned and tidied for her, and the consequence was that Mrs. Hadley met her with black lowering looks. But Hope refused to let herself be disheartened. She said at once to the old woman:

"I am afraid you will not like the idea of my coming here; but I assure you I shall not give any trouble. You must have your hands full with such a big house to look after, and I am sure that I shall be able to help you in many ways."

She only got a grunt as a response, but she did not despair of winning her. Mr. Spencer sat down to a cold supper with her at eight o'clock.

"I dine in the middle of the day," he informed Hope; "Mrs. Hadley does not like any cooking later."

Hope soon found that he was in abject bondage to his old servants. She talked to the old man after supper in his study as cheerfully as she could, but when she retired to her cold and cheerless bedroom, and heard the wind howl down the old chimney, and shake the loose casements of her window, sending chilly blasts across the room—when she saw the dust lying thick on every article of furniture, and noted the grey colour of her blankets and the cold damp of her sheets, she wondered if she could ever bring a cosy comfortable atmosphere into the old house.

Her first day was like a long nightmare to her. In the morning Mr. Spencer insisted upon her keeping him company in his study, whilst he talked to her of the iniquities of his tenants, the insolence of his bailiff, and the tyranny of his servants. The afternoon was a rainy one; she got away to her room, and borrowing brush and duster, gave it a thorough clean out. Mrs. Hadley surprised her in the middle of it.

"I'm sorry the room is not to your liking, miss. Folks that are so partic'lar had best have their own maids to attend to 'em. 'Tis more than Hadley and me can manage, though we did spend two blessed hours in cleaning the filthiest room I ever seed in my life, and which, in course with the rest, was locked up and the key in master's pocket!"

"I'm sure you did all the worst of the cleaning, Mrs. Hadley, and I'm much obliged to you. I'm so accustomed to dust my own rooms that I shall be quite lost without occupation. You mustn't mind my doing some house-work—I love it."

And house-work Hope certainly did. She found that Mr. Spencer disliked innovations as much as his old servants did, but she quietly and determinedly set to work to brighten up the few rooms that were used, and she succeeded in spite of all obstacles placed in her way. She arranged flowers, she cleaned up old bits of silver, she polished brass, and all the time she was doing it she kept asking herself, "Is this to be my vocation in life?"

The old Squire watched her, first with amusement, then with vexation, finally with resignation.

"I wasn't mistaken in her capabilities for work," he would chuckle to himself; but the time he really liked her best, was when she was sitting sewing in his study, and listening to his talk.

Mr. Spencer was a profound egotist and he found her an attentive and sympathetic listener.

Sometimes she would turn the tables upon him, and in her turn would oblige him to listen to her.

"I know you don't think much of women's opinions," she would say to him; "but it is good to hear both sides of every question. You have been telling me of your troubles with the world at large; you think it has not benefited you as it should, and I suppose we all look at life like that. But don't you think it is good sometimes to ask ourselves how we have benefited the world? We may be the centre of our own circle; but there are others. I remember hearing some one say once that the big I of one's self was a mere atom in the universe, and the majority ought to be always considered before the minority."

"So you can preach?"

Hope laughed and said no more, until the next opportunity came.