Chapter XXVIII: What Mrs. Brutt Heard

ONE or two murmurs; and then—

"Dick, I don't think you are well."

(Mrs. Brutt pricked up her ears. "Dick" indeed! Had it gone so far already? She felt that she was amply justified in listening. No one could blame her for carrying out so patent a duty.)

"I'm fit enough. Only worried."

"What about? Tell me."

"I've had a letter."

"From your mother? From one of your sisters? Try to forget it just now. Dick, I didn't half think we should get off this morning. I believe Mrs. Brutt has begun to suspect. She's an awful hand at ferreting out things."

"I should imagine she had a gift that way."

"Oh, she's awful! If once she suspects, we shall have no more peace. Her 'dear young doctor' will be in her bad graces at once. However, she vanished in a hurry after breakfast—perhaps to pester them at the châlet. She does so 'love cheering up invalids,' you know."

(The outraged lady held her breath. That Doris should dare to mimic her! The insolence of it! The impertinence!)

"Mrs. Pressford will probably be equal to the occasion," laughed Maurice.

(The "dear young doctor" had done for himself now. Mrs. Brutt reverted on the spot to her earlier opinion. Had she not known him by instinct as a "sinister" individual? She bristled with wrath.)

"Tell me what worries you, Dick."

"One must have bothers sometimes, darling. It's a letter from the farm."

("Darling" indeed!)

"A most extraordinary thing has happened."

"Yes. Tell me all about it."

"Of course I will. My own, how sweet you look to-day."

("His own!" Atrocious! Scandalous! And she never to have been informed!)

"Take off your hat. I want to see you without it. Look at me, Doris. Those dear eyes! I never saw such expressive eyes as yours. They say everything you think."

"I'm always trying to keep them from doing it. Now, Dick,—what is it that bothers you?"

"Phil Morris has turned up at the farm. Such a scene. Winnie describes it all."

(Phil Morris. The farm! Winnie! Mrs. Brutt became excited. What could Mr. Maurice know about them? Her nostrils quivered, scenting prey. Doris's slight mimicry, Maurice's laughter, had turned her there and then into their bitter enemy. Kind-hearted though she was in the main, inordinate vanity was a leading feature of her character; and she could neither endure nor forgive aught of a personal slight.)

"Phil Morris"—slowly. "Your—" and a pause. "But he was drowned."

"That must have been a false report. He made his appearance without warning. Walked in upon them suddenly."

Doris took one flashing survey of the situation. She recalled the relationship, the portrait she had seen,—and she realised what this must mean.

"Phil Morris! Dick!—your father!"

(Through châlet walls the word had an electrical effect. Mrs. Brutt thrilled with the joy of a seeker after treasure, finding more than he has bargained for. She dismissed for the moment her personal injury, to give undivided attention. Here was a cache indeed, disentombed! Dick Maurice—no longer her beloved young doctor,—actually the son of Nurse Molly, and of that disreputable creature, Phil Morris, hitherto supposed to be dead. Oh yes—she knew—she remembered! She had since hunted out various facts about him, and had learnt to a certainty that he was disreputable. And to think that he should be Mr. Maurice's father! No marvel that, in her brilliant perspicacity, she should at first sight have turned against the young fellow. Within the limits of two seconds, the whole thing became clear; and she crept some inches closer to the wall, that she might not lose a syllable.)

"Then, after all, he didn't die, all those years ago."

"He did not die. It was a mistake. Phil Morris is alive still. But, darling, he is not my father."

"Not!"

"No. That has come out now."

"Oh, I am glad. Are you sure? I'm so thankful. I never could bear to think of you as the son of that man. It would have been too frightful."

"You did not admire the portrait."

"Oh, I couldn't endure it. I may say so now. Such a horrid face!—weak and common and low! It was that which startled me so dreadfully on the top of the Petit Chamossaire—remembering the picture and—That, and—you know, I told you how I came to see it. Mrs. Brutt was ferreting round, and she fished that up."

(Mrs. Brutt set this and the resulting laugh down to the debit side of Doris's account. She put her lips together, and formed one word—"Vixen!")

"I can't tell how far the present position of things is an improvement. I'm in utter ignorance still who my father really was. My mother seems to have admitted that he was above her in birth,— and that that was the reason for secrecy. He did not want his people to know."

"What a coward he must have been! But, anyhow, we can be thankful that it is not that dreadful Phil Morris. You have always been sure that your father was a gentleman; and perhaps this will prove it. Don't you see?"

"I see that I've won a rare treasure."

(Mrs. Brutt heard something suspiciously like a kiss.)

"Don't, please. You know it's not a real engagement, till my father consents." In her heart she said "mother."

"Nothing in life was ever more real to me."

"But tell me more. I want to know how it happened."

"I'll read you Winnie's letter"—and a masculine rumble followed.

First came the description of Phil Morris's sudden appearance, of the farmer's excited announcement, of Mrs. Morris's cold disavowal; well and graphically told, for Winnie was a clever girl, with natural ease of expression, and far better educated than her mother and sister. Then followed the coming of the Squire, Mrs. Morris's explanations, and the farmer's distress.

"And," the writer continued, "I felt I must let you know it all. Mother is sure not to, and Jane says she doesn't mean to meddle and get her fingers burnt."

(Mrs. Brutt nodded a sagacious head at the word "Jane," which clenched the truth of her surmises.)

"I always tell you everything, and mother hasn't said that I must not now. It all seems so strange, Raye. So very, very strange! To know nothing about our father, except just his name,—and not even his Christian name! I asked mother what that was, and she told me I needn't chatter."

"Uncle looks so unhappy; just as he did when we first came. Almost more, I think; for he is so good and true, and he hates deceit. He doesn't know what to think of it all. Jane seems not to care. She is full of her own affairs. But uncle and I care."

"Mr. Stirling looked so stern to-day. It frightened me to see how very stern he can be. I am sure he felt, as uncle does, how mother has deceived us all. He wouldn't say much before others, but he asked to see her alone; and then, I suppose, he told her what he really thought."

"We fancied he would make her confess more; but he didn't. At least, if he did, he kept it to himself. He only said to uncle—when he came out alone—that he understood mother's position, and that it was a very difficult one. Uncle said something about wishing to see her marriage-certificate. And—we were so surprised!—Mr. Stirling said he had seen it, and it was all right; only, he would say nothing more. Uncle had to be content; but he and I did think it odd. Why couldn't she have shown it to uncle, just as much as to Mr. Stirling? Of course he is a very, very old and kind friend; and we owe a great, great deal to him. But it does seem queer. It is all so worrying; and I don't find it easy to be brave. I suppose things are harder to bear, when one is ill and weak."

"Poor Winnie!" murmured Doris. Then, unexpectedly,—"Why does she call you 'Raye?'"

"My name is 'Richard Raye.' I've always been called 'Raye' by my mother and sisters."

"And not by your friends?"

"No."

"Dick—do you remember how I fancied, when first we met, that I had seen you before? I wonder if it is that you are a little like Winnie."

"I have never been counted like any of them. But of course there might be a look."

(Mrs. Brutt, listening to all this, could hardly restrain her eagerness. Something worth knowing had indeed come to hand. Not only that Maurice and Doris were, if not strictly engaged, at least conditionally promised one to another; but that Maurice, the would-be fiancé of Doris, was the son of Mrs. Morris of Wyldd's Farm, and of some unknown individual, who might have been—anything! She realised to the full what a bitter pill this would prove to the stately "Rectorinn.")

(And the Squire! How in the world had it come about that he should be mixed up with these third-rate Morrises?)

(In brief intervals of talk, she tried to puzzle out the mystery. Nurse Molly had been the attendant of his infant niece, during a time of serious delicacy lasting several months, up to the very time, no doubt, when she must have jilted Phil Morris and have taken up with the "other man." Perhaps the Squire knew all about it; perhaps the real husband might even have been a friend of his! This view of the question, however, she dismissed as improbable. On the whole, in her judgment, the only tenable theory was that Mr. Stirling had been as much deceived by "those dreadful Morrises" as everybody else.)

(She remembered with pride her own keenness of sight. "Didn't I tell Miss Stirling that there was something mysterious in the woman— something underneath in her history? I knew it! was sure of it! I couldn't be mistaken." She determined that, so soon as she should return home, she would thoroughly investigate the matter.)

Maurice was speaking again.

"Shall we go a little farther? Can you spare the time?"

"I can spare it,"—laughing. "But we must take care. Mrs. Brutt is awfully suspicious."

"It is not her concern."

("Thanks!"—voicelessly murmured the listener.)

"Only, if once she begins really to suspect, she will make frightful mischief, Dick."

"Well, we won't be more than half-an-hour. Perhaps she has forced an entry at last, and has been all this time entertaining them at the châlet. Imagine Pressford's state of mind!"

Another merry laugh from Doris, and the voices slowly receded. Mrs. Brutt waited, in a state of dire impatience, till she felt that she might venture out. Nobody was within sight. She peered in all directions, gliding with caution, and keeping the châlet between herself and the path they had followed. Her heart beat unpleasantly fast; for, despite her theory that she had every right to listen, the last thing she wished was to have her presence discovered.

Not till she regained the main road did she breathe freely. She walked some way down it, and took a seat by the roadside. The beauty of the scene was lost upon her. She had other things to think about.

Plainly now her duty was to write to Mrs. Winton,—not appearing to know of the engagement, but saying enough to alarm Doris's home-folks. It was no unwelcome duty; for the Rector-inn's importance at Lynnbrooke overshadowed her own, and she objected to be overshadowed. To give that importance a downward pull would be secretly enchanting.

Doris would be at once recalled. That was certain. Perhaps she would decide to go herself also. She was growing tired of this place. She would find it amusing to watch Lynnbrooke developments. The thought of her new knowledge brought a welcome sense of power.

Power that she proposed to exercise—not for the happiness of others, but as a relief to her own hurt and offended feelings. When she recalled the tone of Doris's allusions to herself, and the amused laugh which they had called forth from her companion, she was simply furious. Anything that touched her amour propre lay beyond forgiveness.