Part 34 (1/2)

Mrs. Arbuthnot brightened visibly.

”They're inside a green envelope on the writing-table. You'll find a small pair of very sharp scissors there too. The dark edges are so unsightly if not trimmed. You're sure you don't mind, dearest? It really will be quite a pleasant occupation. It is so dreadfully wet. And Maunder will give you the stickphast. There is clean blotting-paper on the writing-table too, and Maunder can find you anything else you want. Well, that's all right. Maunder is in my room now. She will be going to her tea in ten minutes, so perhaps you might go to her at once. And she is sure to be downstairs for at least an hour and a half, if not longer. Servants always have so much to talk about, and take so long saying it. Why, I can't imagine. It always seems to me so much better not to waste words unnecessarily. So you will have the room to yourself, till she comes to put out my evening things. And I must go back to the drawing-room at once, or they will be waiting Bridge for me. And Lady Fortescue hates being kept waiting. It puts her in a bad temper, and when she's in a bad temper she is extraordinarily erratic as to her declarations. Though, for that matter, she is seldom anything else. I don't mean bad-tempered, but seldom anything but erratic. So, dearest, I mustn't let you keep me any longer. Don't forget to ask Maunder for the stickphast, and anything else you want. And the prints and the scissors----”

”Yes, I know,” nodded Trix cheerfully, ”on the writing table. Hurry, Aunt Lilla, or they'll all be swearing.”

”Oh, my dearest, I trust not. Though perhaps interiorly. And even that is a sin. I remember----”

Trix propelled her gently but firmly from the room. Doubtless Mrs.

Arbuthnot continued her remembrances ”interiorly” as she went down the pa.s.sage and descended the stairs.

Ten minutes later, Trix, provided with the stickphast, the green envelope, the scissors, and the clean blotting-paper, and having a very large alb.u.m spread open before her on a table, was busily engaged with the prints. They were mainly views of Llandrindod Wells, though there were quite a good many groups among them, as well as a fair number of single figures. Trix herself appeared chiefly in these last,--Trix in a hat, Trix without a hat, Trix smiling, serious, standing, or sitting.

For half an hour or so Trix worked industriously, indefatigably. She trimmed off dark edges, she applied stickphast, she adjusted the prints in careful positions, she smoothed them down neatly with the clean blotting-paper. At the end of that time, she paused to let the paste dry somewhat before turning the page.

With a view to whiling away the interval, she possessed herself of a sister alb.u.m, one of the many relations stacked against a wall, choosing it haphazard from among the number.

There is a distinct fascination in photographs which recall early memories. Trix fell promptly under the spell of this fascination. The minutes pa.s.sed, finding her engrossed, absorbed. Turning a page she came upon views of Byestry, herself--a white-robed, short-skirted small person--appearing in the foreground of many.

Trix smiled at the representations. It really was rather an adorable small person. It was so slim-legged, mop-haired, and elfin-smiled. It was seen, for the most part, lavis.h.i.+ng blandishments on a somewhat ungainly puppy. One photograph, however, represented the small person in company with a boy.

Trix looked at this photograph, and suddenly amazement fell full upon her. She looked, she leant back in her chair and shut her eyes, and then she looked again. Yes; there was no mistake, no shadow of a mistake. The boy in the photograph was the man with the wheelbarrow, or the other way about, which possibly might be the more correct method of expressing the matter. But, whichever the method, the fact remained the same.

Trix stared harder at the photograph, cogitating, bewildered. Below it was written in Mrs. Arbuthnot's rather sprawling handwriting, ”T. D., aged five. A. G., aged fourteen. Byestry, 1892.”

Who on earth was A. G.? Trix searched the recesses of her mind. And then suddenly, welling up like a bubbling spring, came memory. Why, of course A. G. was the boy she used to play with, the boy--she began to remember things clearly now--who had tried to sail across the pond, and with whom she had gone to search for pheasants' eggs. A dozen little details came back to her mind, even the sound of the boy's voice, and his laugh, a curiously infectious laugh.

Oh, she remembered him distinctly, vividly. But, what--and there lay the puzzlement, the bewilderment--was the boy, now grown to manhood, doing with a wheelbarrow in the grounds of Chorley Old Hall, and, moreover, dressed as a gardener, working as a gardener, and speaking--well, at any rate speaking after the manner of a gardener? Perhaps to have said, speaking as though he were on a different social footing from Trix, would have better expressed Trix's meaning. But she chose her own phraseology, and doubtless it conveyed to her exactly what she did mean. Anyhow, it was an amazing riddle, an insoluble riddle. Trix stared at the photograph, finding no answer to it.

Finding no answer she left the book open at the page, and returned to the sticking in of prints. But every now and then her eyes wandered to the big volume at the other end of the table, wonderment and query possessing her soul.

Maunder appeared just as Trix had finished her task. Helpful, business-like, she approached the table, a gleam spelling order and tidiness in her eye.

”Leave that alb.u.m, please,” said Trix, seeing the helpful Maunder about to shut and bear away the book containing the boy's photograph.

Maunder hesitated, sighed conspicuously, and left the book, occupying herself instead with putting away the stickphast, the scissors, the now not as clean blotting-paper, and somewhat resignedly picking up small shreds of paper which were scattered upon the table-cloth and carpet. In the midst of these occupations the dressing-gong sounded. Maunder p.r.i.c.ked up her ears, actually almost, as well as figuratively.

Ten minutes elapsed. Then Mrs. Arbuthnot appeared.

”What, finished, dearest!” she exclaimed as she opened the door.

”Splendid! How quick you've been. And I am sure the time flew on--not leaden feet, but just the opposite. It always does when one is pleasantly occupied. Developing photographs or a rubber of Bridge, it's just the same, the hands of the clock spin round. And I've won six s.h.i.+llings, and it would have been more if it had not been for Lady Fortescue's last declaration. Four hearts, my dearest, and the knave as her highest card.

They doubled us, and of course we went down. I had only two small ones. I had shown her my own weakness by not supporting her declaration. Of course at my first lead I led her a heart, and it was won by the queen on my left. A heart was returned, and Lady Fortescue played the nine. It was covered by the ten which won the trick. She didn't make a single trick in her own suit. It is quite impossible to understand Lady Fortescue's declarations. And did you put in all the prints? They will have nearly filled the last pages. I must send for another alb.u.m. Are these they?”

She crossed to the open volume.

”No,” said Trix, ”that's an old volume. I was looking at it. Who's the boy in the photograph, Aunt Lilla?”

Mrs. Arbuthnot bent towards the page.