Book 4. Lady Good-For-Nothing - Chapter 4. The Terrace

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_ BOOK IV. LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING
CHAPTER IV. THE TERRACE

Ruth was happy. To-day, and for a whole week to come, she was determined to be purely happy, blithe as the spring sunshine upon the terrace. For a week she would, like Walton's milkmaid, cast away care and refuse to load her mind with any fears of many things that will never be. Her spirit sang birdlike within her. And the reason?--that the _Venus_ had arrived in harbour, with Dicky on board.

Peace had been signed, or was on the point to be signed, and in the North Atlantic waters His Majesty's captains of frigates could make a holiday of duty. Captain Harry used his holiday to sail up for Boston, standing in for Carolina on his way and fetching off his wife and his firstborn--a bouncing boy. It was time, they agreed, to pay their ceremonial visit to Sir Oliver and his bride; high time also for Dicky to return and embrace his father.

Sir Oliver had written of his approaching marriage. "Well, dear," was Mrs. Harry's comment, "'twas always certain he would marry. As for Ruth Josselin, she is an amazingly beautiful girl and I believe her to be good. So there's no more to be said but to wish 'em joy."

Captain Harry kissed his wife. "Glad you take it so, Sally. I was half afraid--for of course there _was_ the chance, you know--"

"I'm not a goose, I hope, to cry for the moon!"

"Is that the way of geese?" he asked, and they both laughed.

A second letter had come to them from Eagles, telling them of his happiness, and franking a note in which Ruth prettily acknowledged Mrs. Harry's congratulations.

A third had been despatched; a hurried one, announcing his departure for England. Before this reached Carolina, however, the _Venus_ had sailed, and Dicky rushed home to find his father gone.

But a message came down to Boston Quay, with the great coach for Mrs. Vyell, and the baggage and saddle-horses for the gentlemen. There were three saddle-horses, for Ruth added an invitation for Mr. Hanmer, "if the discipline of the ship would allow."

"She always was the thoughtfullest!" cried Dicky. "Why, sir, to be sure you must come too. . . . We'll go shooting. Is it too late for partridge? . . . One forgets the time of year, down in the islands."

Strangely enough Mr. Hanmer, so shy by habit, offered but a slight resistance.

It was Dicky who, as Ruth sped to him with a happy little cry, hung on his heel a moment and blushed violently. She took him in her arms, exclaiming at his growth.

"Why--look, Tatty--'tis a man! And is that what he means?--Ah, Dicky, don't say you're too tall to kiss your old playmate."

Then, holding him a little away and still observing his confusion, she remembered his absurd boyish love for her and how he had confessed it. Well, she must put him at his ease. . . . She turned laughingly to welcome the others, and now for a moment she too flushed rosy-red as she shook hands with Mr. Hanmer. She could not have told why; but perhaps it was that instead of returning her smile, his eyes rested on her face gravely, intently, as though unable to drag themselves away.

Captain Harry and his wife marvelled, as well they might, at the house and its wonders. Sir Oliver had chosen to take his meals French fashion and at French hours; and Ruth apologised for having kept up the custom. Captain Harry, after protesting against so ungodly a practice, admitted that his ride had hungered him, and at _dejeuner_ proved it not only upon the courses but upon the cold meats on the side-table.

"You must have a jewel of a housekeeper, my dear!" Mrs. Harry had been taking in every detail of the ordered service. "'Housekeeper,' do I say? 'Major-domo'--you'll forgive me--"

Ruth swept her a bow. "I take the compliment."

"And she deserves it," added Miss Quiney.

"What? You don't tell me you manage it all yourself? . . . This palace of a house!"

"Already you are making it feel less empty to me. Yes, alone I do it; but if you wish to praise me, you should see my accounts. _They_ are my real pride. But no, they are too holy to be shown!"

They sat later--the gentlemen by their wine--on the stone terrace overlooking the wide champaign.

"But," said Ruth, for she observed that the boy was restless, "I must leave Tatty to play hostess while I take a scamper with Dick. There's a pool below here, Dicky, with oh, such trout!"

Dicky was on his feet in a trice. "Rods?"

"Rods, if you will. But there are the stables, too, to be seen; and the gunroom--"

"Stables? Gunroom?--Oh, come along!--the day is too short!" Here Dicky paused. "But would you like to come too, sir?" he asked, addressing Mr. Hanmer.

Mrs. Harry laughed. "Those two," she told Ruth, "are like master and dog, and one never can be quite sure which is which."

"My dear boy," said Mr. Hanmer, "you must surely see that Lady Vyell wants you all to herself. Yet I dare say the captain and I will be strolling around to the stables before long."

"Ay, when this decanter is done," agreed Captain Harry.

"That was rather pretty of you," said Ruth, as she and the boy went down the terrace stairs together.

"What?--asking old Hanmer to come with us? . . . Oh, but he's the best in the world, and, what's more, never speaks out of his turn. He has a tremendous opinion of you, too."

"Indeed?"

"Worships the very ground you tread on."

Ruth laughed. "Were those his words?"

Dicky laughed too. "Likely they would be! Fancy old Han talking like a sick schoolgirl! I made the words up to please you: but it's the truth, all the same."

They reached the pool; and the boy, after ten minutes spent in discovering the biggest monster among the trout and attempting to tickle him with a twig, fell to prodding the turfed brink thoughtfully.

"We talked a deal about you, first-along," he blurted at length. "I fancy old Han guessed that I was--was--well, fond of you and all that sort of thing."

"Dear Dicky!"

"Boys are terrible softies at this age," my young master admitted. "And, after all, it was rather a knockdown, you know, when papa's letter came with the news."

"But we're friends, eh?--you and I--just as before?"

"Oh, of course--only you might have told. . . . And I've brought you a parrot. Remember the parrots in that old fellow's shop in Port Nassau?"

She led him to talk of his sea adventures, of the ship, of the West Indies among which they had been cruising; and as they wandered back from terrace to terrace he poured out a stream of boyish gossip about his shipmates, from Captain Vyell down to the cook's dog. Half of it was Hebrew to her; but in every sentence of it, and in the gay, eager voice, she read that the child had unerringly found his vocation; that the sea lent him back to the shore for a romp and a holiday, but that to the sea he belonged.

"There's one thing against shipboard though." He had come to a halt, head aslant, and said it softly, eyeing a tree some thirty yards distant.

"What?"

"No stones lying about." Picking up one, he launched it at a nuthatch that clung pecking at the moss on the bark. "Hit him, by George! Come--"

He ran and she raced after him for a few paces, but stopped half-way, with her hand to her side. The nuthatch was not hit after all, but had bobbed away into the green gloom.

"Tell you what--you can't run as you used," he said critically.

"No? . . ." She was wondering at the mysterious life a-flutter in her side--that it should be his brother.

"Not half. I'll have to get you into training. . . . Now show me the stables, please."

They were retracing their steps when along a green alley they saw Mr. Hanmer coming down to meet them. He was alone, and his face, always grave, seemed to Ruth graver than ever.

"Dicky!" said he. "Service, if you please."

"Ay, sir!" Dicky's small person stiffened at once, and Dicky's hand went up to the salute.

"Wait here, please. I wish a word in private with Lady Vyell--if you will forgive me, ma'am?"

"Why to be sure, sir," she answered, wondering. As he turned, she walked on with him. After some fifty paces she confronted him under the pale-green dappled shadows of the alley.

"Something has happened? Is it serious?"

"Yes."

Looking straight before him, as they resumed their walk, he told her; in brief words that seemed, as he jerked them out, to be pumped from him; that made no single coherent sentence, and yet were concise as a despatch.

This in substance was Mr. Hanmer's report:--

They had remained on the terrace, seated, as she had left them-- Captain and Mrs. Harry, Miss Quiney and he. The Captain was talking. . . . A servant brought word that two ladies--Mr. Hanmer could not recall their names--had called from Boston and desired to see Mrs. Vyell. "Surely," protested Mrs. Harry, "they must mean Lady Vyell?" The servant was positive: Mrs. Captain Vyell had been the name. "They are anxious to pay their respects," suggested Miss Quiney. "Anxious indeed! Why we landed but a few hours since. They must have galloped." Miss Quiney was sent to offer them refreshment and discover their business.

Miss Quiney goes off on her errand. Minutes elapse. After many minutes the servant reappears. "Miss Quiney requests Mrs. Harry's attendance." Mrs. Harry goes.

"Women are queer cattle," says Captain Harry sententiously, and talks on. By-and-by the servant appears yet again. Mr. Hanmer is sent for. "Why, 'tis like a story I've read somewhere, about a family sent one by one to stop a tap running," says Captain Harry. "But I'll say this for the women--I'm always the last they bother."

Following the servant, Mr. Hanmer--so runs his report--enters the great drawing-room to find Miss Quiney stretched on the sofa, her face buried in cushions, and Mrs. Harry standing erect and confronting two ladies of forbidding aspect.

"In brief," concluded Mr. Hanmer, "she sent me for you."

"To confront them with her? I wonder what their business can be. . . ." With a glance at his side face she added, "I think you have not told me all."

"No," he confessed haltingly; "that's true enough. In--in fact Mrs. Harry first employed me to show them to the door."

"And--on the way?"

"Honoured madam--"

"They said--what?--quoting whom?"

"A Mr. Silk. But again--ma'am, I am awkward at lying. I cannot manage it."

"I like you the better for it."

"I did not believe--"

"Yet you might have believed. . . . And suppose that it were true, sir?"

He shook visibly. "I pray God to protect you," he managed to stammer.

Her face was white, but she answered him steadily. "I believe you to be a good man. . . . I will go to them. Where is Dicky?" She glanced back along the alley.

"Dicky will stand where I have told him to stand: for hours unless I release him."

"Is that your naval code? And can a mere child stand by it so proudly? Oh," cried she, fixing on him a look he remembered all his days, "would to God I had been born a man!"

Yet fearlessly as any man she entered the great drawing-room. Miss Quiney still lay collapsed on her sofa. Mrs. Harry bent over her, but faced about.

"Mr. Hanmer managed, then, to discover you? Two women have called. . . . I thought it better, their errand being what it was, to show them out."

"I can guess it, perhaps," Ruth caught her up with a wan smile. "They managed to talk with him before he gave them their dismissal."

"Forgive me. I had not thought them capable--"

"There is nothing to forgive," Ruth assured her. "They probably told the truth, and the fault is mine."

Miss Quiney, incredulous, slowly raised her face from the cushions and stared.

"Yes," repeated Ruth, "the fault is entirely mine."

"But--but," stammered Mrs. Harry. Ruth had turned away towards the window, and the honest wife stared after her, against the light. "But he will make it all right when he returns." She started, of a sudden. Cunningly as Ruth had dressed herself, Mrs. Harry's eyes guessed the truth. "You have written to him?"

"No."

"He guesses, at least?"

"No."

"Then you are writing to him? There is enough time."

"No."

Their eyes met. Ruth's asked, "And if I do not, will you?" Mrs. Harry's met them for a few seconds and were abased.

No words passed between these two. "And as for my Tatty," said Ruth lightly, stepping to the sofa, "she is not to write. I command her." _

Read next: Book 4. Lady Good-For-Nothing: Chapter 5. A Prologue To Nothing

Read previous: Book 4. Lady Good-For-Nothing: Chapter 3. Miscalculating Wrath

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