Chapter XXXVII: The Mischief-Maker Again

"IS Mrs. Stirling at home?"

The caller, in her best toque and white kid gloves, put this question with a beaming smile.

Mrs. Stirling was at home, but would be engaged for the next quarter of an hour.

That did not matter in the very least. Mrs. Brutt was in no hurry. She would be most happy to wait. She stepped out, and trailed impressively after the maid. It was well for her peace of mind that she could not see and hear through brick walls.

"Mrs. Brutt!" The tone was significant. "Did you not tell her that I was engaged?"

"You said, ma'am, for a quarter of an hour. Mrs. Brutt doesn't mind waiting."

"If I'd known who it was, I would have been engaged altogether." This was an aside. No love had ever been lost between the two widow-ladies. Then to the maid—"You can bring tea in about twenty minutes." To herself again—"It shall be an elastic quarter of an hour!"

Which it certainly was. Mrs. Brutt, unconscious of her hostess' sensations, but much occupied with her own, stood poised in a graceful attitude at the exact centre of the room, conning over all that she meant to say. She had arrived with a definite purpose.

Unwittingly, the Squire had given her deep offence. It was almost inevitable that he should do so, sooner or later, since she ranked in her own eyes as a personage of high importance, while in his eyes she was nobody.

On her first return from abroad, he had called to thank her for the prompt response to his letter, shown in bringing Doris at once home; and he had also let her know that she was to keep to herself the story of Dick Maurice's suit. Mrs. Brutt had assured him that he might depend upon her discretion. She never talked! She never repeated things. "No one ever concerns themselves," she said, being often guilty of that most common of grammatical blunders, "less than I do, with other people's affairs!"

The Squire knew better, and smiled inwardly; but he believed that he had effectually shut her mouth. And it would have been so, had he followed the matter up, as he really at the moment had led her to expect, by personal attentions in the way of invitations to Lynnthorpe.

But he forgot to mention to Katherine that he wished such attentions to be paid; and Katherine disliked the talkative widow so thoroughly, that she was not likely to take steps on her own initiative. The Squire in fact forgot all about Mrs. Brutt from that day forward. He was harassed, worried, very far from well; and his mind was entirely taken up with his own secret conflict.

Katherine, though not a keenly observant person, began to notice with concern his unwonted languor, his frequent absence of mind, his oblivion of details. These things were new in him. He had been always prompt, business-like, never needing a reminder as to engagements or work. She often had to remind him now.

Weeks had passed, and Mrs. Brutt awaited still the expected invitations to Lynnthorpe—which she looked upon as the price of her silence about Doris and Maurice. But they did not come. Two large parties had taken place, and she was left out. Now the Squire's birthday was at hand, always a fête-day in the place; and she had set her heart on being included in the big dinner-party of relatives and intimate friends.

No such thing! She had a formal card of invitation to the mixed afternoon gathering, to which everybody went,—an omnium gatherum, of which she had often heard, and at which she turned up her nose.

That was enough. If she was to be slighted in such a fashion, after all her trouble in carrying out the Squire's plans, he should be sorry for it! She would follow her own devices, and would hold her tongue no longer.

It occurred to her that to let slip the fact of Doris's love-affair to the mother of Mr. Hamilton Stirling would be the most effective method of revenging herself, not upon the Squire only, but upon Mrs. Stirling, whom she cordially disliked, and upon Mrs. Winton. She was quite aware that the latter wanted to secure Mr. Hamilton Stirling for her daughter, and she had gathered that the Squire did not desire him to know about Dick Maurice. If so, he should have taken a little more trouble about her. She was not going to be shunted on one side in this fashion. People might be offended with her for speaking out,—but what then? She could easily shift her quarters again. Lynnbrooke was a fearfully dull place, and she had had nearly enough of it.

Standing in an elegant attitude was well enough for ten minutes, but the ten grew into fifteen, the fifteen into twenty, and she became both tired and annoyed. Tea was brought in, and still the hostess remained absent. She wandered round the room, paying a perfunctory attention to the pictures.

One in a shady corner drew closer interest. Two heads, side by side, were lightly sketched in French chalks; both of them bearing an unmistakable resemblance to Mr. Stirling, though the one was more delicate in feature, more refined, more really beautiful than the other. Both were young.

"I am sorry to have kept you waiting so long," a voice said behind her. "How do you do? Will you have some tea?"

Mrs. Brutt turned to shake hands.

"I quite understand," she said, secretly wrathful at receiving so scant an apology. "You are always such a busy person. But we had not met for so long, I thought I might venture to say I would wait. I am rather struck with this pair of heads. So well sketched: such fine faces! Am I wrong in supposing that one of the two is Mr. Stirling?"

"He and his brother."

"Ah, to be sure—the father of Miss Stirling. He died, I believe, when she was quite a little child."

"Yes. Years ago. Will you come and sit down?"

"And—which of the two, may I ask, is our Mr. Stirling? This one, I suppose,—such a handsome face!"

"That was the brother—Maurice Stirling."

Mrs. Brutt echoed the word "Maurice!" with an intonation of surprise. Then she took a chair, and poured out a string of bland remarks on the weather, the neighbourhood, why she had come, whom she had seen lately, gradually edging her way in the direction that she wished. Switzerland had to be dragged in, neck and shoulders. Mountains, with their exquisite scenery, came next; and Doris followed.

"By-the-by"—playing with her bracelet—"I wonder whether you have happened to hear of the young surgeon, Mr. Richard Maurice, whom we happened to meet abroad. Curious how many Maurices there seem to be!"— reflectively. "Really, quite odd. I imagine that the Squire is acquainted with him."

"Not unlikely," Mrs. Stirling said carelessly. "Will you have some cake?"

"Thanks. Such delicious cake! Home-made, no doubt. We met Mr. Maurice first at Bex, and then in the mountains. A rather agreeable man; and clever too. He and Doris went no end of expeditions together. Girls do such odd things, you know, in these days. You and I, when we were girls, would no more have dreamt of going off for a day with a strange young man, than of flying to the moon. The one would have been as impossible as the other. But everything now is so different! Of course they were not strangers long. Very much the reverse, as you may imagine."

Mrs. Stirling, having received Doris's little note, and having been impressed by it, woke up to the fact that there was method in this outpouring. She handed more cakes.

"Thanks very much. I'm really ashamed—I am making quite a meal. And my appetite is generally so small—so precarious, you know. To tell the truth, I rather blamed myself for laxity, in allowing the two to be so much together—perhaps in trusting them too implicitly. Mine is a trustful nature, and one is so liable to be taken in. But pray count all this to be in the strictest confidence! You see—things really did go rather far. I quite thought something was coming of it. But even in modern days, the course of true love doesn't always run smooth."

"This may be only the second volume of the novel. Perhaps a third will follow," cheerfully suggested Mrs. Stirling.

"It may—of course. But something seems to have gone wrong. And when one sees Doris, one cannot help feeling very sorry for the poor girl. So very apparent—what she is feeling! But I ought not to have said so much. I—in a manner I almost promised! Only, you of course—being so intimate with them all—it seems as if you really ought to know. But unless you can assure me that it will go no farther, I must not say any more."

"It sounds an interesting tale. I can undertake that it will not travel beyond my son and myself."

Mrs. Brutt professed herself satisfied, and proceeded to pour forth the whole story—not to say, a good deal more than the whole. Mrs. Stirling listened with an air of placid detachment, smiling sympathetically. Whatever she felt for Hamilton's sake, she did not turn a hair; and Mrs. Brutt, who had meant her tidings to come as a blow, was disappointed.

"Quite a nice little one-volume love-affair!"

Mrs. Stirling remarked at the end. "It seems rather a pity, since he is such a pleasant young fellow, that he should not have her—even though he has not the sixteen quarterings!"

"Very far from that. There is something most hazy about his family history—his father, more especially—putting aside the Wyldd Farm relationships. And besides—between ourselves—I imagine that her parents have other views for Doris."

"Really! Are you sure? We are not too well off in this place for eligible men. Do, pray, tell me—who can it be?"

Mrs. Brutt could have shaken her; and the temptation proved irresistible.

"Of course I don't pretend to know. I am hardly more than a stranger—not in the Wintons' secrets. But I do happen to have heard, and on extremely good authority, that your own son has been paying a good deal of attention to Doris—and that her parents are more than willing."

Mrs. Stirling lay back in her chair, and laughed till tears ran down her cheeks.

"My son! Hamilton! After Doris Winton! My dear Mrs. Brutt!—where can you have picked up such a preposterous notion? Doris Winton! Hardly more than a child! A pretty girl, and a nice girl, but not in the least suited to Hamilton. He has known her all her life, and they are very good friends,—in fact, he is rather fond of instructing her in geology, and I have seen her unmistakably bored with it. He and I will have a good laugh over that report. Oh, I quite understand—you had it on the best authority! Did you ever hear any piece of impossible news which was not on the very best authority? I never did. I'm afraid somebody has been amusing herself at your expense. If you really wish to know the truth—quite between ourselves!—I can assure you that the one woman in the world for my son would be—Katherine Stirling! But at present she would never think of leaving her uncle. He so depends upon her; and she is a very embodiment of unselfishness."

Mrs. Brutt felt herself foiled. She had had distinctly the worst of the encounter; and she took herself off with a much offended air. When she was gone, Mrs. Stirling went straight to her son, and related what had passed.

"I've no doubt there is a modicum of truth in the woman's gossip," she said. "Though why she should have taken the trouble to tell me, I don't know. Mere love of talk, probably. All that about the farm people is, I dare say, pure imagination. But this explains Doris's note. She has been éprise by the young surgeon, and can't think definitely of anybody else."

Hamilton looked solemn. He was more amazed than distressed. He had never doubted that he only had to propose to be accepted. That Doris should prefer another to himself was almost inconceivable! But clearly it was the case.

"If you take my advice, my dear boy,"—she called him a "boy" still sometimes, as mothers do, long after boyhood is passed,—"you will give up thinking about Doris, and just go back to Katherine. And—I may be mistaken, but somehow I do think you are a good deal to Katherine. I think you might succeed in that direction. And I've made it easy for you now to prevent people from saying that you have been refused. You know what I have always wished. Doris is a charming girl. But Katherine—!"

That "But Katherine—!" with its unspoken suggestion, took hold of him. The thought of Katherine soothed his wounded pride. After all, nobody had been to him what Katherine always was. She, and not Doris, formed the embodiment of his typical wife. And if Doris really had taken up with somebody else, rather than himself—well, Hamilton was sorry for her!

He spent a restless night, and next morning went to Lynnthorpe, for two hours in Katherine's company.