Part 20 (1/2)

But Mrs. Donnan, who was listening, put the short-bread into the oven quickly, and came out. She had begun to learn the tones of Hugh John's voice. She understood at once.

”My daughter!” she cried, and, opening wide her arms, kissed her.

Butcher Donnan paused a moment, uncertain, and then, nudging his wife: ”I ought to, I know,” he said, ”but just you do it for me--the first time.” So Mrs. Donnan kissed Elizabeth again, and the Butcher wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, as if he had just had something good to drink. Then they looked about for Hugh John to make him share in the family joy, but that young gentleman, guessing ahead something of their intention, had disappeared with his usual thoroughness and absence of fuss. Some recognition from Elizabeth, privately bestowed, he was in no way averse to, the time being dusky and the place far from the haunts of men. But at mid-afternoon, opposite the railway station, and behind a green and blue bead curtain to which Edam had not yet awakened--on the whole, it is small wonder that Hugh John decided upon the better part of valor.

Safe in his cave on the hillside, he wiped his heated brow and congratulated himself on his escape. Perhaps he would not have rejoiced quite so much had he known that Sir Toady, entering at that moment in quest of gratuitous toffee sc.r.a.pings, found himself at once heir to all the affection which was really his brother's due. Sir Toady accepted such things as they came in his way, much as a cat drinks from stray cream-jugs, but without giving particular thanks for them. His motto, slightly changed from the rhyming proverb, was ever--

”He that will not when he can, He's not at all my sort of man!”

XIX

THE DISCONTENT OF MRS. NIPPER DONNAN

When Mr. Robert Fortinbras heard of his daughter's determination, he declared that he renounced her for ever. But after thinking the matter over, and especially on being reminded by Hugh John that one day she would become heiress of no mean part of the Donnan wealth, he consented to a limited forgiveness, on condition that in the meantime she should do something for her father and mother. But her sister Matilda openly revolted, saying that _she_ always knew Elizabeth meant to shove the housework off on her, and that she did not care if not a dish was ever washed in that house again. Elizabeth reminded her that, far from idling at New Erin Villa, she was on foot from morning till night. Also that nine times out of ten when she came home she found Matilda asleep on the sofa, with a penny novelette flung on the floor beside her. There was a feeling of strain for a moment, but Elizabeth presented her sister with a striped blouse and half-a-dozen stand-up collars, which promptly brought forth the declaration, ”Oh, Elizabeth, you mustn't mind what I _say_. It is only mother's nagging that does it, but I do love you!”

Which may or may not have had to do with the striped blouse and the half-dozen collars. On the whole, there was a certain feeling of satisfaction in the house of Mr. Robert Fortinbras that Elizabeth was so well provided for, and that in a day of trouble she might even a.s.sist the brilliant adventurer with some of the gold of that unimaginative citizen, Mr. Ex-Butcher Donnan.

But Miss Elizabeth Fortinbras, though the best daughter in the world--with only one exception that I know of personally--had no idea of encouraging the busy idleness of her father, or the foolishness of the rest of the family. She had found a business that suited her, and she would in nowise interest herself less in it now that she was, so to speak, the present partner and future heiress in the concern.

There was but one person discontented, Mrs. Nipper Donnan. She was jealous of the white-curtained cottage, the trim garden, which began to blossom where she had hung out her clothes. Chiefly, however, she hated Elizabeth Fortinbras and ”that Hugh John Picton Smith,” who, strangely enough, was her abhorrence--though it was not his habit to ignore any one, but only to pa.s.s on his way with a grave bow.

Hugh John was an uncomfortable person to quarrel with. His great bodily strength and long practice in the art of boxing rendered him a man of peace whose very presence made for reconciliation. In the neighborhood of Edam he was President Roosevelt's ”moral policeman with a big stick.”

Even at home he held over the head of an offender a baton of honor and ”the right thing to do.”

At school, it is to be feared that his discipline was sterner. There he argued but seldom. He was the centurion who said, ”Do this!” and the other fellow did it. But then, it was a good thing to do, and the head master generally considered him as his best ally.

He was father's constant companion on his walks, and to hear them debate in that precious half-hour in the dining-room after dinner was to escape suddenly from the smallness of the world about, and find oneself on the high Alps of thought where the sun shone early and late, where the winds blew clean and cold, and thought was free exceedingly. Neither counted anything as to be accepted merely because they had been told it upon authority. They searched and compared, the man and the boy, Hugh John's finely a.n.a.lytic mind steadied and gripped by the elder experience. Their talk was not the talk of father and son, but rather of two seekers--Hugh John declaiming high, direct, often fierce, while through the smoke of a contemplative cigarette father went on smiling gently, now waving a hand in gentle deprecation, dropping a word of moderation here, qualifying a statement there--the son holding strictly for law and justice, of the firmest and most inexorable, the father dropping counsels of mercy and that understanding which is the forgiveness of G.o.d, being, as always, a Tolerant of the Tolerants.

I know that those who have read the two books called after Sir Toady Lion may fail a little to recognize my elder brother. But nevertheless this is the same who in his time wept because as a little child with a wooden sword he had been saluted by the Scots Grays, the same also who fought the ”smoutchies”; and if I have said nothing about a certain notable Cissy Carter, it is only because, though I know, in the meantime I have promised not to tell.

It will easily be understood that with such an adversary Mrs. Nipper Donnan, ex-kitchen-maid at Erin Villa, stood little chance. Hugh John listened patiently and gravely, his head slightly bent in the pensive and contemplative way which was then his princ.i.p.al charm. He heard that he had interfered where he had no business, that Mrs. Nipper Donnan knew that he had always hated her husband, that, while as good as engaged to Colonel Carter's daughter, he was walking the lanes with Elizabeth Fortinbras--yes, and plotting and planning to get a fortune for her--a fortune which would make beggars of her husband and herself, and strip an only son of his inheritance.

To the angry woman Hugh John made no reply. He only kept silence, with that gentle irony which is his present manner with those who grow quarrelsome--that is, if they are not of his own s.e.x and (approximately) age.

He only called Nipper--and by a series of questions ascertained from him that he knew how Hugh John had been the means of obtaining better terms for him than he had ever hoped for, since his marriage had so offended his father. Hugh John Picton Smith could speak no lie. He, Nipper Donnan, would uphold this against all comers. Even in the days of the smoutchies and the prison vault at the old Castle in the Edam Water he had known it. Even his very enemies had known it, and had taken Hugh John's word before the sworn oath of any one of themselves. He would take it now, and as to his wife, if she said another word--out of the shop she should go! She did go, slamming the door behind her. Nipper stepped across and shot a bar with a jarring sound heard all over the house. Then from behind the counter he thrust forth a hand, hard and ma.s.sive, towards Hugh John, who took it in his strong grip. They looked at each other in the face, eye to eye. There was a slight shrug of Nipper's shoulders and a toss of his head in the direction of the barred door, which said that a man could not be responsible for his womankind, but as for themselves, had they not fought far too often and too fairly ever to go behind backs to do each other an injury?

XX

TREACHERY!

To-day Hugh John let me see a letter which he had received from Cissy Carter in Paris. As no one will see my diary, and also because there is nothing very private in the letter, I have jotted down as much as I can remember in my locked book. It was written from number twenty of the Avenue d'Argenson, and the date was the day before yesterday. It began without any greetings (as was their custom).

”HUGH JOHN--People have written to me about you and Elizabeth Fortinbras--not nice people like you, me, and the Rat” (this was their unkind and meaningless name for--me, Miss Priscilla Picton Smith). ”I don't much care what any one writes, of course. For I know that if ever you change your mind, you will do as you said, and send back _your_ half of the crooked sixpence. You need not put in a word along with it. Only just send the half of the sixpence by the registered letter post, and I shall understand. I promise to do the same by you.--CISSY.”

Now it must long have been clear that my brother Hugh John is as careless about his own concerns as he is careful for other people. He naturally took Cissy at her word, and having a conscience quite void of reproach with regard to Elizabeth Fortinbras or any other, very naturally thought no more about the matter.