Chapter IX

They returned home by the back way, and as they passed the lodge a little bent old woman curtsied to them from the door. From a brown shrunken face, wrinkled like a withered russet apple, gleamed two small bright black eyes. The nearly toothless mouth was twisted into a smile, and the whole countenance expressed a mingled obsequience and cunning. Rusk nodded briefly. He had taken a strong dislike to her from the first moment he had seen her. A parrot screamed as they passed, and the old woman stood looking after them.

“How long has Rebecca been with you?” Rusk asked when they were out of earshot.

“Oh, she’s always been there,” said the boy gaily. “She was there long before _we_ came. It is we who are the interlopers.”

“I don’t much care for her.”

“Mamma doesn’t like her either. She once tried to get her sent away.”

Rusk reflected that this possibly accounted for her continued presence, but he did not say so. “She’s the coachman’s mother, isn’t she?”

“Yes. It’s rather strange. She’s got five or six sons and all with different surnames--at least, so Johnson told me.”

Johnson was the gardener, and, it should be added, was for reasons of his own not on speaking terms with the lady of the back lodge.

Rusk stared.

“She’s been married five or six times?” he marvelled.

“Oh, no, I don’t think it’s exactly that,” said the boy vaguely. “But of course, it mayn’t be true.... I wonder if papa will be home for dinner to-night. I suppose he will.”

“Is he expected?”

“I think so. He was to be back this morning. Do you like it better when papa isn’t there?”

“I don’t intend to answer questions of that kind,” said Rusk half-angrily, “and you ought to know better than to ask them.”

“I’m awfully sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Of course, it can’t make any difference to you whether he is there or not.”

When they reached the house, however, they were not long left in doubt as to whether or no Mr. Bracknel had arrived. May was on the stairs, and she stopped half-way up the first flight as she heard Denis and Rusk enter the hall. “Papa has arrived,” she whispered. Then she pursed up her mouth expressively as she looked at her brother. “Don’t make a noise.”

“Make a noise!” said Denis. “What should we make a noise for? Did you expect us to cheer? What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Dinner will be in in a minute.” She went on upstairs smiling back at them over her shoulder.

At dinner, Mr. Bracknel appeared, and to Rusk’s surprise Alfred also was present. He had guessed that it had not been for his pleasure that the father had undertaken a journey to Switzerland, but he was hardly prepared for so speedy a return of the prodigal, and he wondered what had actually taken place. Mr. Bracknel, however, was quieter than usual, and for once did not find fault with anything. He appeared moody and abstracted, and all kinds of telegraphic communications took place across the table without attracting his attention. Alfred was sulky and bored. Forgetful of the proverb that it is well to let sleeping dogs lie, Rusk asked him how he liked living abroad and what he thought of Switzerland. A glance from Amy warned him that he was treading on dangerous ground, but unfortunately the hint came too late. The word Switzerland seemed to pierce through Mr. Bracknel’s reveries and he looked up. He answered curtly that Alfred was home for good, and in such a tone as to leave no doubt as to the reason why. But Alfred himself affected indifference. “I’m very glad to be back again,” he dropped nonchalantly, and giving his father an insolent stare.

“You’ve always the pleasure of knowing that you bring comfort and happiness wherever you go,” said Mr. Bracknel, sourly.

“I’m not the only one who does that, perhaps.”

Mr. Bracknel started, but checked himself. Fortunately the pause that ensued was broken by Denis, who seemed just then to have wandered out of a dream.

“I took Mr. Rusk to the Birches this afternoon,” he said innocently to his mother, quite unconscious of the storm that was hanging in the air.

“Did you, dear?”

“I’m sure he must have enjoyed it,” Alfred sneered. “Fancy taking anyone to see those two old cats!”

“Oh, the old one’s not so bad,” Amy chimed in. “She’s harmless at any rate. It’s Anna who tries to be sarcastic--as if anybody cared about her!”

“I thought them very nice,” Rusk remarked.

“Did Harriet show you her embroidery, and did Anna read aloud to you?”

“You might be a little more respectful, Amy,” Mrs. Bracknel murmured. “I don’t like the way you have of sneering at people.”

“I’m not sneering at anyone; and what matter about those old frumps even if I was?”

Mrs. Bracknel looked distressed. “If you don’t respect them for anything else,” she said, “you ought at least to remember they are my friends.”

“I’m afraid I’m not sufficiently sentimental. At all events they’re no friends of mine. Mr. Rusk thinks them charming because they made a fuss about him. I can just imagine it--as if they wouldn’t give their eyes to get hold of any man!”

Alfred laughed, but Rusk for some reason felt annoyed. He wished Denis had not mentioned their visit. Amy, however, quite regardless of her mother, proceeded to give a lively imitation of Miss Anna reading aloud, and of Miss Harriet listening; and then, encouraged by Alfred, of Miss Harriet receiving an imaginary lover and being unexpectedly kissed by him. This latter performance, even in the midst of reveries inspired by his elder son, seemed to tickle her father enormously.

After dinner the tutor went out by himself to take a meditative stroll. He lit his pipe and sauntered across the lawn, thinking of what Doctor Birch had told him about Denis. He hardly knew what to make of it, nor exactly how all these unsatisfactory warnings were to be of much help to him. They seemed, if anything, merely to complicate matters by awakening all kinds of doubts and anxieties. Yet they were not to be ignored. He had himself noticed in his pupil all the peculiarities Doctor Birch had mentioned. He had told himself that Denis was too unusual--too unearthly--it was of his very essence to be so. Only it had never occurred to him that those same qualities which had struck him as beautiful and rare might also be, if slightly accentuated, actually perilous for the boy’s well-being.

In the midst of his meditations he heard a rustling behind him and turned round to see Amy, flushed and out of breath, hurrying after him. “I’ve come to apologize,” she said, pouting a little. “I called to you, but you wouldn’t wait for me.”

“Apologize!” he echoed absently, his mind still busy with the problem of his pupil.

“I’ve been watching you, and I could see you were thinking of what I said at dinner, and that it was annoying you--I mean all that about the Birches. You don’t know how cross you can look. But I was only in fun. I’m sorry.”

Rusk laughed. He was on the point of telling her that he had forgotten all about what she had said at dinner, but he checked himself, having an instinct that this might offend her. “I’ve an idea that you think me a most thorough-going prig,” he remarked.

“I don’t--at least, only now and then; and it’s just because you’re so English.”

Rusk laughed again, though he got rather red.

“Are you going for a walk?” Amy went on. “Shall I come with you, or do you want to be alone?”

“I shall be delighted if you will come.”

“You say that, as if you were being led to the stake. I know you don’t like me, but I want to know why. Do tell me.”

“My dear Miss Amy, you make the most extraordinary remarks!”

“Oh, that’s just a way of getting out of it. You would rather have May, wouldn’t you? You have more in common with May. You are both intellectual and can talk together by the hour about intellectual things. I loathe intellectual things.”

“You seem to loathe a good many things,” said Rusk. “If you tell me what it is you like we can talk about that.”

For a moment he thought she was going to say, “I like you,” but she didn’t. “I like life,” she answered, “and living, and knowing I am alive. And pleasure--I don’t mean anything ethereal and ascetic, mooning over sunsets and poetry and all that--but real pleasure--riding and motoring and playing golf and dancing and theatres and--oh, hundreds of things.”

“You ought to be very happy, then,” said Rusk, phlegmatically.

“So I am, when I get what I want. I’d do anything in the world to get what I want.”

She spoke, as usual, with an air of perfect frankness, and there was, as usual, something about her which vaguely disquieted him. He was for ever telling himself that he did not much care for her, but it was impossible to help feeling the abundance, the fascination of her vitality. There was something in her nature that had a kind of sweeping force, like the pull of a strong current.

“Were you surprised to see Alfred back again?” she went on. “You guessed, I suppose, that it was on account of him papa went away?”

“Not exactly. I had a vague idea of course, but I wasn’t sure.” It was a perpetual source of wonder to him, the amazing way in which the various members of the Bracknel family took him into their confidence, and retailed, with the fullest particulars, matters that might have been supposed to be more or less private. “I saw I had rather put my foot in it at dinner,” he continued. “It was quite unintentional.”

“Yes, I know. It didn’t matter. But that was really the reason why papa went. He had a letter from the house over there saying that they hadn’t seen or heard anything of Alfred for a fortnight, and wanting to know what they were to do. Papa posted over immediately, and discovered Alfred away up somewhere in the mountains with goodness knows who. He brought him home, and now he’s simply furious about it. What bothers papa is the way Alfred would allow everything to go to smash in the business. He told him on the way back that he was only going to give him one more chance, and I know he’ll keep his word. I’ve just been doing my best to get Alfred to turn over a new leaf.”

Rusk was silent, while he puffed at his pipe. He had no desire to discuss these family matters, but Amy kept on, undiscouraged:

“It’s not all his fault either. I mean, papa keeps him far too close. He only gives him two hundred a year, and he must be up to his eyes in debt. Papa isn’t generous in things of that kind: he’s just the opposite. Alfred says there’s not a man in the firm who gets decently paid. In fact the office is filled with girls, simply because they’re cheaper; and papa won’t allow anyone to have the least authority. Alfred says that last year he made about forty thousand. Of course it was a very good year, and Alfred is likely exaggerating; but still it’s a lot of money, and it makes him mad when he thinks of his two hundred. He ought to pay you more, Mr. Rusk, too.”

Rusk winced. “I don’t think--” he began hastily,

“Oh, I’m not going to say anything. You needn’t be so frightfully sensitive. Only you do a lot for Denis: you’re very different from the other tutors he has had. Besides, you are a gentleman, and they weren’t. Poor papa, of course, doesn’t know what a gentleman is; but we do--even Alfred has some idea.”

They strolled on in silence for a few minutes through the mild, beautiful, summer evening. The long twilight was slowly darkening into night. Overhead the sky was clear, but a heavy dew had begun to fall. The cawing of the homing rooks had died away, and an exquisite quiet had fallen on the air. Rusk could have appreciated it much more had he been alone. His companion jarred on him inexpressibly, but he had no way of getting rid of her. He thought of the well by the hawthorn, and had Amy not been with him he would probably have gone there to see it again: he thought of Denis and his lonely sacrifices to the moon. And somehow at this moment it was these things that were real, the girl beside him, so full of life and the passion for life, that was meaningless and vague. A divine tenderness seemed to drop down from the sky; the rustle of the fading, darkening trees was full of a dreamy, melancholy music. He had almost forgotten her when she spoke again:

“Rebecca was up at the house to-night. She says she saw you this evening, but that you hardly noticed her: she says you never _do_ notice her.”

“I don’t like her,” said Rusk shortly, and Amy made a little grimace.

“You’re so hard to please,” she exclaimed.

“I’m certainly not pleased by Rebecca, and I don’t know that I want to be.”

“Well I think you might talk to her a little now and then out of kindness. She’s very interesting. She knows all sorts of queer things.”

Rusk was beginning to feel thoroughly bored. “If she knows anything worth knowing I’d be rather surprised,” he said. “I don’t think I ever saw a more villainous-looking old hag in my life.”

“She says she used to be a beauty; but it was a long time ago. She’ll talk to you for hours about her dead and gone lovers.... She believes in witchcraft and in charms and in all kinds of things of that sort. She can give you cures and charms for whatever you want. She had a bit of a sheet that was once wrapped round a corpse, and she told me that if I could get mamma to tie a corner of it over her head it would put away her headaches: and you know mamma has the most frightful headaches.”

“It was excellent advice then.”

“Don’t be so sarcastic. I’m sure if I had as bad headaches as mamma has I’d try it. It couldn’t do much harm at any rate.... She can give you a love-charm, if you want one, Mr. Rusk,” she added, suddenly, in a mocking tone, “and she can tell you all sorts of things to do on May Eve and Hallow Eve. Last May Eve I tried a thing she had told me about. I sprinkled ashes just outside the hall door, and then very early in the morning before anyone was awake I got up to see if there was a foot-print on them. If there is a foot-print, and it is turned inwards, it means marriage; if it is turned outwards it means death. I got the most horrible fright because there _was_ a foot-print, and I hadn’t a bit expected one. It was turned outwards, too. One of the maids had got up early to gather dew to put on her face--if you gather dew on May morning, you know, and put it on your face, it makes you beautiful--and it was her foot-mark I saw. But, of course, I didn’t know that till afterwards, and it gave me an awful shock.”

Rusk had not been listening very attentively, yet she seemed to be waiting for a reply. “So those are Rebecca’s accomplishments,” he murmured abstractedly.

“Oh, you’re perfectly horrid. I won’t tell you anything more. I never saw anyone so superior in my life.”

They had turned on their homeward way and presently the house again came into sight. He was not sorry. There was something in the girl’s manner that warned him to be very careful. She had shown him pretty clearly that she liked him, and perhaps something more. He never knew, either, just how far she would go--that was the worst of it--though he was most particular to avoid all topics that, so far as he could judge, might develop sentimentally. Still, she was quite capable of choosing her own topics, or of doing anything else that happened to suit her purpose. Latterly she had begun to try to invent opportunities to be alone with him, and it was rather difficult to frustrate these designs without being more or less rude. He had no desire to be rude, but he had a suspicion that it would be necessary, sooner or later, to become so, unless he were prepared to play the rôle she appeared to wish him to adopt. When he entered the library Denis was sitting at the table working. He looked up in the soft lamplight and smiled. Rusk went over and sat down beside him.