Chapter XII: Words in Season

WHEN the girls reached Mellingham after a pleasant drive, Geraldine's face was tinged with colour, and she looked almost her usual self.

"I am glad you brought me out, Kitty," she said. "I am quite ready to make a study of materials and styles on your account, and hope I shall not feel too envious when I see you wearing the results of it."

"No fear of that, Ger, or whilst you were planning for me, you would make arrangements for yourself."

"Don't you know that one of the first lessons my mother taught me, was to study what I could do without?"

"You do without too many things, Ger, and you will not allow anybody else to fill up blank spaces in your wardrobe."

"My dear Kitty, there are none. It is too full, and its contents are going to be thinned to-morrow."

"Just like you. The question in your mind is not whether you need all your garments, but whether some one else is in greater need of them. So they go before you have really done with them."

"Not before I can well spare them, though every article has its destination fixed in advance. And when one has an affection for a garment, despite its age and fashion, it is sometimes a trial to part with it a little earlier than one intended, because of the shabbiness of a pensioner's best gown."

"I believe you choose your own dresses largely with a view to their second-hand usefulness, Ger," said Kathleen. "I am afraid I could not do that. I am too anxious about my own personal appearance, to trouble myself as to what the effect of my garments will be on their next wearer. I would rather buy new ones of homelier stuff, for those who are in want of them."

Geraldine laughed, and replied, "You give me more credit than I deserve, Kitty. I think quite enough of my own wants and looks. Please to remember the compliment you paid me only last night."

"It was a true one. You are always beautifully dressed, and at a far less expense than myself."

"You know how fastidious I am as to the quality of my materials, so, being good, they stand more wear, and do substantial service second-hand."

At this moment the carriage stopped in front of the principal silk mercer's in Mellingham, and soon Kathleen, assisted by Geraldine and the principal dressmaker, Miss Pritchard, was busily engaged in choosing materials for evening dresses. Then styles had to be decided upon, and a previously ordered walking-gown fitted.

Miss Pritchard was looking pale and weary, and Geraldine said, "I am afraid you are very tired to-day."

"I am, rather. We had an unexpected press of business on Monday, and more work has been promised for this week than can well be got through."

"And you, being at the head of this department, will no doubt feel the responsibility a heavy one."

"Naturally I do; but those who are under me feel it equally, though in another way. But please do not think that I am complaining. My employers have their anxieties also."

"Undoubtedly they have," replied Geraldine, struck with the patient dignity of the young modiste, whose refined manners had struck her when they first met. "I hope you received the message I sent you a few days since," she added.

"I received no message," replied Miss Pritchard. "Was is about the dress I re-trimmed for you? I hoped it would please you, though, owing to a difficulty in matching the material, I was unable to carry out your instructions exactly."

"You made it look far prettier than I could have thought possible," said Geraldine. "The style is perfect, and I was very anxious you should know I was pleased with it, so I called and left a message with one of the assistants to that effect. He promised to deliver it at once."

"It never reached me, though I should have been glad to have it, for I was not sure you would like the unavoidable change. Praise travels slowly towards our work-rooms, but blame is winged on its way. It is a common saying amongst the girls, that if fault is found the messenger comes upstairs two steps at a time. If a word of commendation is spoken down below, it stays there, for fear workers should think too much of themselves and their work."

"But that is unjust," said Kathleen, warmly. "I should have thought it would be so pleasant to pass on a message of praise, and so much the opposite to be deputy faultfinders."

Miss Pritchard smiled, though rather sadly, as she answered—

"Messages of praise are comparatively rare. We workers generally think that the old saying, 'No news is good news,' applies to what we do, and are well contented to hear nothing. If, however, ladies wish to serve those whose work gives them satisfaction, they could do so very materially by expressing their approval to one of the firm. We should probably hear nothing about it, even if a note were written to that effect, but it would be remembered to our credit, all the same."

Kathleen recalled to mind an incident which had occurred a few months before, as she noted Pritchard's suggestion.

A milliner in the employment of another firm had been terribly nervous one morning when displaying some hats for her to choose from. She was young and attractive-looking, but there were traces of tears in her eyes, and her hands trembled visibly. Her employer was in the showroom, and watched the movements of the girl with a stern face. Kathleen's quick instinct divined that the girl was in trouble, probably in fear of losing her situation, and this, she happened to know, would be a serious matter to her, on account of an invalid mother, to whom her help and presence were essential.

Turning to the master of the place, Kathleen said, with her most winning smile—

"I have been looking at these pattern-hats, which I suppose I ought to consider perfect, but I shall not choose from amongst them. I much prefer the modifications produced under the superintendence of your own milliner, whose superior taste is often commended by my friends."

Kathleen mentioned the names of several of the proprietor's most valued customers, and gave her own order in accordance with her words. She chose only the colour she desired, and with a bright smile said to the young milliner, "I know I can leave all else to your good taste. You have always pleased mine."

The words were spoken loudly enough to be heard by the proprietor, who bowed the rich Miss Mountford out of his establishment with a face wreathed in smiles, after Kathleen had bade the girl good morning, and received a volume of grateful thanks expressed in her changed looks.

"I said nothing but the truth," was Kathleen's comment, when at a future visit the young milliner was able to express her thanks in words.

"You saved me and my mother," replied the girl. "Had I been dismissed, I must have sought a situation elsewhere, and, probably, at a distance. My mother could not have been removed, and I am sure the parting would have shortened her life."

It was generally either through something Geraldine did or said that Kathleen learned these lessons of thought for others, but she was an apt scholar. Sometimes, indeed, her impulsive nature would distance Ger's prudence, and she would say and do more than was necessary in a really good cause.

"You are so wise, Ger, as well as generous," she would say, "and I am always running into extremes. Never mind. Better do too much than too little, or nothing."

On this morning at Mellingham she was somewhat exercised in her mind about Miss Pritchard. She wished the new gown to be completed by the week end, but the sight of Miss Pritchard's pale face decided her to say—

"Do not harass yourself or allow any one to be overworked on my account. My dress can stand over till another week, if necessary."

"Thank you very much," replied Miss Pritchard. "It will probably be ready, but it is a relief to have your permission to leave it over."

Some other shopping had to be done, and sundry commissions executed for Mrs. Ellicott before they met the carriage at an appointed place. These completed, they started homeward.

Hollingsby Hall and village had no railway station very near to the bulk of the houses. The village was long and straggling, and the station was about half a mile distant from the end farthest from the Hall. Its position had been chosen so that it might be about equidistant from Hollingsby and another larger village, and as the inhabitants of both were wont to say, "It couldn't have been planted awkwarder for all parties if they'd had a judge and jury to settle where it should be." From which remark it will be divined that the rural mind had decided against the collective wisdom of these institutions.

A little before the carriage reached the station, Mountain pulled up, to wait until a passenger train had started and the gates been opened for him to drive across the line. As they waited, Kathleen noticed a boy intently watching the departure of the train, and waving his cap frantically to some passenger. There was no mistaking the little figure. It was Ralph Torrance, and Captain Jack was returning his boy's farewell by waving his hand from the carriage window. The father's eyes were far too intent upon Ralph to notice the Mountford carriage and its occupants, but Kathleen had time to think of what she saw.

"He is going away again, and without Ralph, so most likely he will not be long absent," she thought. Both ideas gave her a certain amount of pleasure. She was not sorry that Captain Torrance would be unlikely to cross her path again immediately. She would have been sorry, for Ralph's sake, to think that the boy would be left alone for any length of time. At least, Kathleen tried to persuade herself that pity for the lonely child was her reason for wishing his father a speedy return.

Both the cousins saw Ralph starting homeward on foot, and noticed that he was a great deal altered by his recent illness. He had passed through the turnstile, and was on the road, before the way was clear for the carriage, but as it passed him he took off his cap and stood aside, his dark curly head bared, and looking the very image of his father.

A moment after Mountain was signalled to stop, and Kathleen called to Ralph, who was slowly following.

"Would you like a seat with us, Ralph?" she said. "You look tired."

"If you please, Miss Mountford," replied the boy, and gladly took his place opposite Kathleen, adding as soon as he was settled in it, "Father did not know I should be at the station to see him off. He said good-bye to me after breakfast. He was calling somewhere between home and the station, and he did not want to take me with him. Besides, Kelpie—that's my very own pony, you've seen him often, Miss Mountford—had cast a shoe, and was gone to the smithy, so I couldn't ride. But I meant seeing father off, for all that, so I just ran to the station by the short cut across the fields, and was there in time. Only he was in the carriage and they were shutting the doors, so we could only wave to one another. I'm glad I went, and father wouldn't know that I was walking. He would think Kelpie had come back in time, and that I should ride home. Else he'd have been sorry, perhaps, and afraid of me being tired."

"Because you have been ill lately, I hear?"

"Did father tell you so? We only got home the night before last, and now he is gone back again."

"Yes, your father told me. I was sorry to hear of your illness. I am glad you are with us, and will not get too tired," said Kathleen.

"Oh, I'm not afraid of walking, though I like riding better. It's just nothing of a run to the station and back, when one is well. I wish father knew that you were giving me a lift home, seeing I haven't the Kelpie. He has been as frightened about me as if I were a girl. Boys are stronger than girls, you know, Miss Mountford, and can stand a great deal more."

"Sometimes, Ralph, not always. Illness affects both pretty much alike."

Ralph pondered Kathleen's reply, as if not altogether satisfied with it, whilst feeling that, as a boy and a gentleman, he ought not to disagree with a lady.

"Were you long ill?" asked Geraldine.

"Nearly all the while we were away. I had a cold and a cough, and then I got worse and stayed in bed, and a nurse came to the hotel to take care of me. Father was in an awful way one day. Nurse says I did not know him, but I can't just believe that. As if I could forget father!"

There was something touching in the way the boy drew himself up and threw back his head, in contempt at such an absurd notion.

"You would not if you were well, dear," said Kathleen, "but older people sometimes forget when they are very ill. They remember again afterwards."

"Older people might. I know Sarah's grandmother does not remember anybody, she's so old, and she stays in bed all the time. But I know I could never forget father."

Ralph said this in a tone so decisive that it was useless to reply. Geraldine and Kathleen smiled at each other, but made no attempt to alter his opinion.

Sarah was Ralph's personal attendant. She was a Hollingsby young woman, who had been his first nurse, and who had stayed on at Monk's How regardless of all save the child, for whom she had cared during his mother's lifetime.

Sarah was plain of face, staid in manner, often sharp of tongue, but wholly devoted to her charge, whom she would have shielded from bodily harm at the risk of her life. With regard to harm of another and more serious kind, Sarah was powerless. To the best of her ability she taught the child the simple lessons she had herself learned at her mother's knee, or in the Sunday school, hoping that some of them would abide, and perchance bring forth fruit after many days. As to the captain, Sarah was abundantly conscious of his shortcomings, and moaned over them in private; but she would hear no word uttered against him. She had idolized Mrs. Torrance, and knew that the wife's love for her husband had remained unchanged till death.

"Whatever the master may have done, he loved the mistress, and he's fond of his boy, though I often wish he'd show it in a wiser way," was Sarah's opinion. "It's my place to uphold him, and not to stand by and hear any tongue wag against the master, whose bread I've eaten for near on eleven years past."

In educational matters, Ralph was "seen to," as Sarah put it, by the Hollingsby curate, to whose rooms the boy went for two hours daily; but his manners were modelled on those of Captain Jack himself.

"Won't Sarah swear, I mean scold, when I get home, Miss Mountford!" said Ralph, as the carriage neared Monk's How. "Of course Sarah doesn't swear. I only say that for fun, and to tease her when she's vexed. I ought to have been in for dinner at one o'clock, and now it's nearly two, I'm sure. When father's at home I generally have proper late dinner with him as well."

"I suppose Sarah will be wondering what has got you," said Kathleen.

"Yes. I told you I had run away to see father off."

"Would you like to lunch with us, Ralph?" asked Kathleen. "We can leave a message at the lodge for Sarah."

"I should rather think so. It would be just lovely. Only," continued the boy, with a dubious glance at his garments, "Sarah will say I had no business to go without being dressed up, you know. Can you wait for me a few minutes, whilst I run in and tell her?"

"Your clothes are all right, Ralph. You only want a wash and a brush up, which you shall have at the Hall, whilst we are having ours, you know," replied Kathleen, quickly. She had asked the boy to accompany them on a momentary impulse, but was not prepared to drive into the grounds and wait at the entrance of Monk's How until Ralph's toilet had been performed to Sarah's satisfaction.

So the message was left, and much to Mountain's disgust, the boy, instead of being dropped at the lodge, accompanied the girls to the Hall.

"That's the first move," growled Mountain to himself, as he turned his horses towards the stables. "The father came with our young lady to the gates, the other day; the boy is in the house. One more step, and the captain as they call him, will follow. If I could but—" Here Mountain paused, and whatever he further thought must be guessed.