Part 10 (1/2)
”Very well, then, we will consider it settled. We do not leave the house until half-past eleven, by that time I shall see what the day is going to do. It is beginning to cloud over, and I don't like the look of the sky. If it shows any disposition to rain I shall certainly not risk an attack of rheumatism by walking on damp gra.s.s, but if it keeps fine I shall be ready when the carriage comes round. Miss Turner will no doubt be very glad to stay at home.”
She swept from the room, and the scene which followed can be better imagined than described. Mildred paced up and down, her cheeks aflame, her lips pressed together to keep back a torrent of angry words. Lois had hard work not to cry outright, while Bertha sat down on a chair, and clasped her hands in despair.
”I know what it means!--I know what it means! She went with us once before. She made me stay beside her all day long, and wear m.u.f.flers round my neck; and sit inside the coach coming home. She wouldn't let me have an ice at lunch, or sail on the lake--or--or--do anything nice!
I'd just as soon give it up at once, and stay at home. It will be all spoiled! I sha'n't enjoy it a bit!”
She was very near tears herself, but for once in her life Mildred made no response. There was a strange, half-triumphant smile upon her lips, and she continued to pace up and down the room, and to take no part in her friend's lamentations.
By and by Bertha and Lois went away, with dejected mien, to attend to the various duties with which they had been charged. Bertha to the nursery, to give orders that some little friends should be invited to take tea with the children, Lois to arrange the basket of flowers which the gardener brought up to the house. About ten o'clock the sky clouded over in a threatening manner, and it seemed as if Lady Sarah's prophecy was about to be fulfilled, but when the carriage came round to the door at half-past eleven, the sun was s.h.i.+ning again in all its splendour, and the air felt warm and fragrant.
Neither of the girls had seen anything of Mildred since parting from her in the breakfast-room, but at the last moment she came strolling leisurely across the hall, looking such a picture of youth and beauty as made them hold their breath in admiration. The blue dress looked as fresh and dainty as if it was being worn for the first time, a soft white sash was twisted round the waist, and a bunch of ox-eye daisies tucked into the folds of muslin round the neck. The golden hair fell in wavy ma.s.ses down her back, and the shady hat dipped forward over her charming face. The Dean's daughters looked colourless and insignificant beside her, but they were too radiantly happy to care about their own appearance, for it was Miss Turner who came forward to seat herself beside them in the carriage, while Lady Sarah stood within the porch speaking her farewells in tones of ill-concealed irritation.
”Most rash and foolish I call it! I heard the rain distinctly, I tell you, and not satisfied with hearing, I put my head out of the window and felt several drops upon my face. Have you taken umbrellas and mackintoshes?--No? Now, my dear Lois, pray, don't make objections to everything I say. Your mother is away, and I feel the responsibility on my shoulders. Miss Turner, will you be good enough to see that umbrellas and mackintoshes are taken, and good thick cloaks in case of cold? You will be starved to death on the coach coming home.”
The echo of the fretful voice followed the carriage as it drove away from the door, and as Bertha waved her hand, a shadow of compunction fell over her face.
”She is disappointed! Poor old lady; she looks lonely, standing there.
She daren't come because of her rheumatism; but just look at that sky, and imagine anyone saying that it had been raining; so positive about it, too. She must have been dreaming.”
”Well, for goodness sake don't begin to be miserable now, Bertha, because she is _not_ coming! Two hours ago you were nearly crying because she was. You said you wouldn't enjoy yourself at all, and would just as soon stay at home. For goodness sake be cheerful, and don't grumble any more!”
Mildred's voice sounded so irritable that her friends stared at her in surprise. She looked exceedingly pretty and charming, but not quite like herself all the same. It was difficult to say wherein the difference lay, yet both Lois and Bertha recognised it at once. The air of exuberant happiness, which was one of her chief characteristics, had disappeared. She looked strained, worried, ill at ease.
All through the earlier part of the day this curious depression seemed to hang over Mildred's spirits. At every quiet opportunity she whispered an eager ”Are you enjoying yourself?” into her friend's ear; ”You are enjoying yourself, aren't you, Bertha?” but it was not until lunch was laid out upon the gra.s.s, and the merry scramble for knives and forks had begun, that she herself seemed able to enter into the fun with a whole heart. From that time onward she was her own merry self, and Bertha had the pleasure of seeing her prophecy fulfilled, for before the afternoon was over, Mildred, in her old blue dress and renovated hat, had become the princ.i.p.al personage in the party. The ladies were charmed with her because she was so pretty, and had such winsome, coaxing little ways; the gentlemen, because she was a thorough school-girl, free from every trace of young-ladyish affectation. It delighted them to see her race up the hillsides, or skip from rock to rock across the river bed, and when the time came for the return drive, there was quite a struggle for the seat by her side in the coach. The gentleman who gained it was, in Mildred's estimation, the most interesting of the number. He was very tall, and so thin that his clothes hung upon him in baggy folds. His skin was burnt to a dull brown colour, and had a curious dried-up appearance, but his blue eyes shone with a boy-like gleam. Mildred could not make up her mind whether he were old or young, but as he remarked, in the course of conversation, that he had just returned from a fifteen-years sojourn in Ceylon, and that he had left England shortly after his twenty-first birthday, she was able to calculate his age with little difficulty.
”I am interested in Ceylon. Do tell me all about it!” she said.
Whereat her companion smiled, and said that was a ”large order.” He proceeded, however, in easy, chatty manner to give some interesting accounts of the country, and his own adventures therein. He told, for instance, of how darkness fell suddenly upon the land, and the tiny streams swelled in an hour to the magnitude of a river; how, when returning from a friend's bungalow one evening, the oil in his lantern had given out, and he had been compelled to crawl on hands and knees along the dangerous road; how, on the borders of a forest, he had seen two snakes standing erect in deadly combat, and could remember a flight of white b.u.t.terflies, three miles in length and of such density that they obscured the sun as with a cloud. He told stories of his elephants, too; how they had worked for him in building the big tea-factory on which he had been engaged, dragging the heavy stones up the hillsides, and pus.h.i.+ng them into their own particular niche, with their ponderous feet. How steadily they worked, and with what persistence, until the bell rang at four o'clock, when they instantly turned tail, ambled off to their lines, and refused to do a stroke of work until the next morning. ”Fifteen years!” he sighed; ”fifteen years! It is a good slice out of a man's life. When I went out, I had dreams of making my fortune in a few years and coming home to spend it in England, but the days of rapid fortune making are over, and I shall probably end my life in Ceylon. I wasn't much older than you are now, Miss Mildred, when my guardian packed me off to an office in the city, and I was obliged to sit copying letters at a desk from morning till night. Bah! how I hated it. I made up my mind to go abroad the moment I was twenty-one, and could claim my money, but when the time came, I felt pretty bad at leaving. I had a special chum, with whom I lived and worked, and played, and shared every joy and sorrow. It was a terrible wrench to part from him--and from someone else--the lady who is now my wife! You have been introduced to her, I think; there she is in the blue dress, sitting in the front of the other coach.”
”With the brown hat? Yes, I know; I like her. She looks awfully sweet.” Mildred nodded her head decisively, and her companion's eyes twinkled in response.
”Oh, yes! she's quite satisfactory. Bullies me a little now and then, you know--between ourselves; but one can't have everything in this wicked world. Well, you see, she came out to me in due time. But before there was any talk of that, another curious thing had happened.
I was sitting in front of my bungalow one afternoon, very low and homesick, and tired to death after a long day's work. I was wondering if I should ever live to get back to the old country, or to see my friends again, when suddenly a man came round the corner of the road, and marched up the garden path. He was an Englishman--that was seen at the first glance; he was tall, and broad, and had a peculiar way of holding his shoulders. I stared at him, not knowing if I were awake or asleep, and when he was within a dozen yards, he raised his head to look at me, and it was my chum!--the very fellow I had been thinking of five minutes before, and despairing of ever seeing again!”
”Good gracious! What did you do? What did you say?”
Mr Muir smiled.
”Do? Say? I called out 'Halloa!' and he called out 'Halloa!' and we shook hands and went into the bungalow. That seems strange to you, doesn't it? If you had been in my place, and one of your school-fellows had appeared upon the scene, you would have behaved rather differently, I imagine!”
”Rather!” cried Mildred; ”I can't think how you can have been so calm!
If I had been there, and had seen Bertha coming, I'd have whooped like a red Indian, and rushed down, and simply smothered her with kisses. Men must be awfully cold-blooded.”
”I don't know about that. There are different ways of expressing one's emotion. A grip of the hand goes a long way sometimes. Well, I was fortunate, you see, for I had my chum with me once more. He had been as lonely without me as I without him, and had made up his mind to come and join me. We bought an estate between us, and now have a factory of our own. I was grieved to see these good people drinking Chinese tea this evening. I believe some wiseacres pretend that it is good for the digestion, but what is that compared with encouraging the poor planters in Ceylon? Remember, Miss Mildred, I rely upon you to drink nothing but Indian tea for the rest of your life.”
”Oh, I will!” promised Mildred readily. ”I am quite interested in Ceylon now, because of you, and of another planter who was a friend of a great friend of mine. She told me a story about him only a few weeks ago. He wasn't so fortunate as you. He was quite alone, and he tried to grow quinine--cinchona, you call it, don't you? All the other estates suffered from blight, except his, and he was promised ever so much money for it--a fortune--but just when he was so happy, thinking of coming home, the disease came on his estate too, and everything died away before his eyes. All his work was lost, he had to begin over again, and dig up the land to plant tea instead.”
”Now, I wonder who told you that story!” Mr Muir cried. ”I knew a fellow who had exactly the same experience. Curiously enough, he came home in the s.h.i.+p with me. We only landed a week ago. Do you mind telling the name of your informant?”