Chapter VIII: Old Mr. Brooke

“HAVE you really walked all the way from Woodleigh?” asked Mrs. St. John.

“That is nothing,” averred Joan.

She was conscious of Mr. Brooke’s eyes upon her—fine black eyes still, remarkable in contrast with his snowy hair—and she raised her own to meet them. His gaze was searching and perplexed. Joan’s brows bent angrily.

“How far off is Woodleigh?” asked Mr. Brooke.

“Four or five miles, I believe,” Mrs. St John said. “I have only driven round there once or twice. Not keeping my own carriage, I cannot manage distances often.”

“And you do not think anything of an eight miles’ walk, or more?” said Mr. Brooke, directing his remark to Joan.

“No,” Joan said, with sufficient brevity.

Mr. Brooke’s eyes were on her still in a persistent gaze much to her indignation and discomfiture. She turned round with her face to the fire, and her back to him, ostensibly for the better drying of her wet skirts. Nessie at once did the same.

“Sisters are not always alike in face,” Mr. Brooke remarked deliberately. “But I do not think I ever witnessed so remarkable a dissimilarity as in the case of these two young ladies. It is quite extraordinary.”

Nessie said nothing, leaving Joan to speak for herself; and Joan’s spirit of truthfulness forced an unwilling confession.

“We are not sisters,” she said curtly.

“Not—ah, only cousins?”

Joan counted him interfering as well as disagreeable.

“We are not sisters really,” she repeated; “but it is just the same as if we were. Nessie, I don’t believe it is any use our waiting for the rain to stop.”

“No,” assented Nessie.

“You cannot possibly walk home in this downpour,” objected Mrs. St. John.

“Yes, we can. It doesn’t matter,” said Joan. “And father would not like us to be out so far-away, after dark.”

“Your father?” queried Mr. Brooke. “I suppose—Mr. Rutherford?”

Joan’s eyes flashed an accompaniment to her “Yes.”

“I presume this to be a second case of ‘not really,’” Mr. Brooke said in a cynical manner.

“No, it is not. He is my father,” Joan retorted, her black brows drawing together over the dark eyes with a look of positive fury for an instant. Little knew Joan how familiar that look was to the white-haired old gentleman in front of her. A strange expression came into his face—of pain, of wrath, of positive fear. His lips were livid, and the full snowy eyebrows above his black eyes contracted into one straight line, after the manner of Joan herself.

“Your name is Rutherford, then?” he said hoarsely, as if not quite able to control himself.

Joan’s face too had become colorless, but she suddenly grew cool and self-controlled.

“I am Mr. Rutherford’s child,” she said slowly. “I belong to him, and to no one else. He is my own dear, dearest father. Nothing else matters—to me or to anybody. I do not see that it concerns strangers; and I did not come here to be catechised. Nessie, if you like to stay, you may; but I am going home at once. The carriage can be sent for you.”

Nessie looked frightened, and Mrs. St. John came forward, with an appealing—

“My dear Mr. Brooke.”

“Stay! One moment;” and Mr. Brooke laid on the girl’s arm a detaining hand, which she indignantly shook off—“one moment, pray! You need not fear that I shall trouble you after to-day. But I have a wish—an impertinent curiosity if you like to term it so—I have a wish to know whether Rutherford is your name.”

A pause and then—

“No, it is not,” said Joan.

Mr. Brooke seemed inclined to say more, but he did not. His pale features writhed with suppressed agitation. Then a light footfall outside became audible, and he abruptly quitted the room. A lady’s voice could be heard alternating with his in the passage, and both receded.

Joan held out her hand to Mrs. St. John, with a brief “Good-bye.”

“You must not think too much of Mr. Brooke’s ways. He is rather a singular character,” said Mrs. St. John, half apologetically. “Must you really leave? Well, I can lend you cloaks and umbrellas; and the rain is not quite so heavy.”

Joan would have spurned the offered wraps, but for Nessie’s sake. It was with difficulty that she could be persuaded to take a waterproof for herself, and she was in an agony of impatience to be off, hardly able to endure Nessie’s slow fumbling over buttons. Mr. Brooke remained absent, and Mrs. St. John no longer pressed for a lengthened stay.

The two set off at express train speed, Joan racing Nessie almost out of breath. Nessie submitted for a while, and then had to protest. Joan went a little more slowly, but kept grim silence all the way, till within the garden of Woodleigh Hall.

“That dreadful old man!” broke from her at length.

“Mr. Brooke? He was rather funny,” said Nessie. “I couldn’t understand quite what he meant. But do you know, Joan I thought him a little like you—in face, I mean. He has just your—”

“Nessie—if you dare!” cried Joan furiously.

Nessie gazed sideways at her companion in astonishment.

“Why, Joan!”

“He is not like me, and I am not like him,” cried Joan. “Mind, you are never to say so, Nessie; and least of all to mother. I can’t bear Mr. Brooke, and I hope we shall never, never, never see him again.”

“It’s odd, though, his being a Mr. Brooke,” said Nessie. “Oh, I suppose—” as the idea dawned slowly on her intellect—“I suppose that was why you would not tell him your name!”

“It was no business of his. Why must he meddle?” asked Joan hotly.

Nessie took refuge in puzzled silence, and the front door was reached without more words. Dulcibel came out to meet them, exclaiming at the condition of Nessie’s boots and skirts. Joan rushed off to her own room, flung aside her wet clothes, and hurried downstairs again, straight to the study.

George Rutherford was writing letters, and merely gave a half-glance up as Joan burst in.

“I am busy, my dear,” he said, expecting her to take a book and sit down, after her wont.

But Joan stood still by his side, and George looked at her a second time—to lay aside his pen. He saw immediately that letters for the next post were not the most pressing matter just then.

“Why, Joan—my dear little girl,” he said tenderly.

Joan dropped down in a careless heap by his side, laying her white face against his knee, and clinging convulsively to the hand which he held out.

“O, father—father—don’t let them take me from you!” she cried, in a tearless, unsobbing anguish of terror.

“What has happened, my dear?” asked George, trying to raise her; but she only crouched lower, and grasped him more tightly. “Where have you been?”

“Father, you wouldn’t give me up—father, dear. Say you never, never, never will!” implored Joan.

“Never, if the choice rests with me.”

“No, no, no—say never—without that,” moaned the girl. “Father dear, please, please!”

“Joan, you will make yourself ill; look up at me,” commanded George, with a kind of gentle sternness.

She obeyed at once, lifting a face absolutely colorless, except for the dark hues of eyes and brows. He had never seen her thus before.

“Now tell me what has occurred—quietly. You must not excite yourself.”

Joan restrained herself so far as to speak steadily, but her voice was hoarse, and she trembled like an aspen-leaf.

“My dear child, you seem to me to be making a great deal of what is perhaps little or nothing. Brooke is no uncommon name—and for a Brooke to have black eyes is nothing unusual either. Nessie noticing a likeness is perhaps rather a strong point. But I don’t think much of his curiosity. That is a quality not at all confined to the female sex; and you did your best to rouse it.”

“I did not mean—Father, what shall you do?” asked the girl, growing quieter, though her face had still a scared look.

“Nothing at present!”

“You won’t try to find anything out?”

“I do not think that necessary. If the old gentleman’s suspicions were raised—if he has any reason for wishing to know more—he can very easily make inquiries.”

“And if he did; and if—if—somebody should want to have me?”

“I don’t think anybody could well come forward now with a stronger right than mine over you, Joan. And, remember, your twenty-first birthday is passed.”

Joan’s face lightened up.

“Oh, I am glad! I didn’t think of that. Then nobody could take me from you now, dear; dear father!”

“No, I do not think you could be forced away, my Joan,” he said. “And I could never ask or wish you to go—unless at the call of duty.”

“It never could be my duty to leave you for anybody—never!” said Joan emphatically.

“I cannot say, my dear. That will be as God chooses,” George Rutherford answered. And then he said wistfully—“Joan, don’t love me too much.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Joan, with a startled look up.

“Don’t let it be the reigning love in your heart. Christ must be first.”

“But he is not,” said Joan calmly “I know that quite well, father dear, and I have told you so before. I hope I shall learn to love him some day—enough to go to heaven. I want that, of course.”

“And that is to be all, in return for the love which made him die for you!”

Something of the ardent devotion which had glowed in Joan’s face, as she looked up, glowed now in George Rutherford’s face as he lifted his eyes towards the gray sky. An awed feeling came over Joan.

“Father, do you love Christ really—truly—so as to be always thinking of him?” she asked.

“Yes, Joan.” There was no hesitation in the answer.

“But if you could choose—if you might go to him—or stay with us—mother and Nessie and me—father dear, you do love me very, very much—if you had to choose—”

“I have not to choose. But if I had—that would be the ‘far better.’”

Joan’s face clouded over, and two or three large tears fell.

“It will not seem strange to you some day,” George Rutherford said, stroking the dark head. “Wait till you know him, darling. He is so fair—the ‘chiefest among ten thousand!’ That has all to come to you by-and-by. Only he must be sought before he will show himself; and it isn’t a happy thing for us to be content apart from him. Remember, the more love I give to him, the more love I have for you.”

“Oh, father, it all seems so far-away; and I don’t care for anything or anybody except you!” murmured Joan.