The Laurel Walk

“Those trails and bunches of leaves are lovely,” she said heartily, “they make all the difference in the world, and it will all look still prettier when the fire has burnt up a little,” for one of the changeless rules at Fir Cottage was that the drawing-room fire should only be lighted at four o’clock.

She moved towards it as she spoke, and gave it an audacious touch with the poker.

“Dear me, how chilly it is!” she went on. “Aren’t you both half-frozen, or is it the change from papa’s study, where I’ve been sitting? He does keep it so hot. And oh! by-the-by, you will be interested to hear that I’ve just been writing a note to his dictation making an appointment for to-morrow with Mr Milne, for a letter came by the afternoon post saying he was to be down here this evening for a couple of days, and would see papa about those repairs that the bailiff couldn’t order without his authority, and – now wouldn’t you like to know the name of the man who’s coming down with him? – all that old Webb told us was quite correct.”

“How interesting,” exclaimed Eira, “how extraordinarily interesting! Yes, of course, do tell us his name at once.”

“He is a Mr Littlewood,” Frances replied. “I don’t know his first name, nor whether he is young or old, or indeed anything about him, except that – ”

“What?” said Eira quickly.

“Oh, it is only the tone of Mr Milne’s letter which papa showed me. He seems to take for granted that we know something about this man, and when I asked papa he said he had some vague remembrance of one of Mr Morion’s sisters having married some one of the name several years ago. One of the elder sisters he thinks it was, so in this case Mr Littlewood must be a middle-aged man,” Frances added.

“I’m sure I don’t mind in the least whether he’s old or young,” said Eira, “if only they bring a little life about the place. I only hope they’re not going to turn out invalids coming down here for perfect quiet and rest, and all that kind of thing.”

“It’s sure to be something of that sort,” said Betty, speaking for the first time, rather drearily. “What else, in the name of everything that’s sensible, would any one come to Craig Bay for?”

“Craig-Morion isn’t quite the same as Craig Bay,” said Eira. “A country house makes its own entourage. There are lots of places – delightful to stay at – which must look more isolated and out of the world than this place does, when they are shut up. But do tell us, does he actually say that Mr Littlewood’s going to take it?”

Frances considered.

“If you want his very words,” she replied, “I think they are that Mr Littlewood is coming to see the house with ‘a view to a possible tenancy.’ Dear me! what a long day this has seemed! Isn’t it tea-time yet?”

“It’s,” said Betty, peering up at the timepiece, for the room was already growing dusky, “it’s a quarter or twenty minutes past four. There’s one thing I do thank papa for,” she added, speaking more briskly at the prospect of afternoon-tea in ten minutes, “that he keeps the clocks going correctly. It would be too horrible if they were all standing still and out of repair. Frances,” she went on, “it’s a worn-out subject, I’m afraid, but can you think of any way in which we three, or any one of us, could make a little money? It has come into my head so this afternoon how delightful it would be to brighten up this room a little. Even the thought of old Milne looking in makes me long for it to be rather more like other people’s.”

Before this, Frances, who rarely allowed her hands to be idle, had ensconced herself in a corner as near a window as she could manage, anxious to benefit by the last remains of daylight for a beautiful bit of embroidery, which represented her special fancy work, and this for practical reasons. Her materials were of the simplest, being merely white lawn and embroidery cotton, with which, nevertheless, thanks to her quickness at transferring designs, she was often able to add beauty to her younger sisters’ otherwise undecorated attire.

Before replying, she glanced at her handiwork.

“Personally, I can think of nothing but my work,” she said. “But there are such beautiful imitations of hand embroidery nowadays that I don’t believe I should get much for it, so that really it’s better to use it ourselves; and I must say that the first thing I want money for is to help us to be better dressed, rather than our drawing-room.”

She looked at her sisters regretfully. Nature had not done badly by either of them, and each had a distinct style of her own, which, however, even their sister’s partial eyes could not but own was shown to the very smallest advantage by the chefs d’oeuvre of Miss Tobias, the village seamstress, who spent a few days at Fir Cottage two or three times a year for the purpose of manipulating new material, or transmogrifying old, into clothes for the sisters’ wear.

“Yes,” said Betty, agreeing with the expression she saw in her sister’s eyes, “we are atrociously dressed: there’s no other word for it I know; and what makes it doubly hard to bear is the old story. If mamma would allow us even fifteen pounds a year each, in our own hands, there would be some hope of better things. I am sure we could manage better, but as things are it is quite hopeless. That was what made me speak of this room instead of ourselves.”

Frances sighed and folded up her work for the time, for there came the welcome sound of the tea-tray and its contents.

“They both might look so pretty,” she thought to herself. She watched Betty’s slight figure as she helped to arrange the cups and saucers with her little white hands, and Eira’s lovely hair as it glimmered and glowed in the firelight. “How is it that people will see things with such different eyes? If mamma could but see them as I do! and how, comparatively speaking, small effort might make them and their lives so different.”

For Frances thought a great deal more than she expressed. She had an almost morbid terror of adding or exaggerating any new grounds of discontent to the two, who often seemed to her more her children than her sisters, slight as was in reality the difference of age which separated her from them.

An approaching rustle – somehow or other their father always announced his advent by a rustle; this time it was that of the afternoon paper he had just opened – made her look up in expectation of some request or complaint. This time, by good luck, it was the former.

“Sorry to disturb you, young ladies,” he said in an unwontedly amiable tone, “but if you’ll allow me a little bit of the fire, I should be grateful. Where is your mother?” and as at that moment Lady Emma made her appearance, “I have a letter from Milne at last, you will be glad to hear,” he said, addressing her, “so I hope these wretched repairs will now be seen to.”

Lady Emma replied with unusual animation. “You mean that he is really coming down?” she said; “and what about the second arrival expected? Is it true that we are to have neighbours at Craig-Morion, as the girls heard?”

“Dear, dear!” said her husband; “what incorrigible gossips women are!” But his tone was still agreeable. “It is true that a Mr Littlewood is thinking of the place. And, by-the-by, Emma, your memory may be better than mine. Is there not some connection between the Littlewoods and – the Morions?”

“To be sure,” said Lady Emma, a spot of colour appearing on her cheeks with gratification at his flattering appeal. “To be sure: the present man’s eldest sister married one of the Littlewoods of Daleshire. No doubt it’s one of them – perhaps the very one.” But on Eira’s following up this promising beginning by further inquiries, her mother declared herself unable to give any more particulars, and the conversation lapsed into its usual monotonous and scarcely more than monosyllabic character.

Still, throughout the rest of the evening the sisters were conscious of a slight stir in the moral atmosphere; very little, it must be confessed, was enough to give them this sensation; and when the next morning at breakfast their father announced his intention of shortening his usual – when the weather was fine enough – afternoon constitutional, by reason of the probability “of Milne looking in about tea-time,” they felt justified in harbouring a definite expectation of some break in the regular routine.

The weather was somewhat milder, thanks to which and to Frances’ nursing, Eira’s chilblains were decidedly on the mend, in itself enough to raise her spirits to an extent which would appear disproportionate to the happy beings who know not the woe and misery occasioned by these unwelcome visitors.

Lady Emma was heard to give certain injunctions as to afternoon-tea, which encouraged Frances to follow suit.

“You would like us to be in by four o’clock or thereabouts, I suppose?” she said, “in case of Mr Milne’s coming,” for the old lawyer was sufficiently man of the world for a little gossip with him to be a by no means disagreeable variety.

Lady Emma looked up vaguely.

“He may only have time for a talk with your father,” she replied. “But – well, yes, you may as well be at hand. For one thing, your father may want you, and there’s no reason why you all shouldn’t be here at tea-time as usual.”

“Or not as usual,” said Betty, as they ran upstairs to put on their outdoor things. “I warn you both that whatever you do, I am going to try to make myself fit to be seen, for once, and I advise you to do the same. It stands to reason that if these Littlewoods are coming down here, they’ll be asking Mr Milne about possible and impossible neighbours, and as they are connections of the other Morions, our name must catch their attention.”

“And we certainly don’t want to be described as dowdy – no, I won’t say old maids – but getting on in that direction sort of people,” said Eira. “Yes, Betty, I back you up. Let’s, at any rate, do the best we can. Our best serge skirts aren’t so bad, as country clothes go, and we may as well wear our black silk blouses – the ones mamma gave us when Uncle Avone died – they’re such a much better cut than poor Tobias can achieve.”

“But we’re not supposed to wear them till some other old relation dies,” said Frances. “There are ever so many still, a generation or so older than mamma! It’s wonderful how Irish people cling to life! And I don’t suppose we’d get such nice blouses again in a hurry.”

“Well, you needn’t wear yours,” said Eira; “somehow you always manage to look better than we do!” In which there was a certain truth, for Frances had the advantage of superior height, and her undeniable good looks more nearly approached beauty, though of a somewhat severe type, than Betty’s delicate sweetness or Eira’s brilliant colouring.

“My old velveteen looks wonderful still by candle-light, I must allow,” said Frances, not ill-pleased by her sister’s innocent flattery, “and I dare say mamma won’t notice your blouses.”

“Any way she can’t scold us before old Milne,” said Eira, “and I don’t care the least bit if she does after he’s gone. All I do care for is that he should be able to speak of us with a certain amount of – not exactly deference, nor admiration, nor even appreciation, but simply as not being completely ‘out of the running,’ we may say, so far as appearance goes.”

The result of this confabulation was not altogether unsatisfactory. The two younger girls, at least, had a certain childlike pleasure in the sensation of being better dressed than usual, which was not without a touch of real pathos, being as far removed from any shadow of vanity or even self-satisfaction as could be the case in feminine nature.

They were sitting in the drawing-room in the half-light of the quickly waning day, brightened by the ruddy reflections from a much better fire than usual, when their mother came in hastily, glancing round with her short-sighted eyes.

“Frances,” she said, “are you there? I told you to be ready. Your father has just looked out of his study calling for you, and I said I would send you.”

Frances started up, not hastily – her movements were never hasty, but had a knack of inspiring the onlooker with a pleasant sense of readiness, of completed preparation for whatever she was wanted for.

“I am here, mamma,” she said. “I will go to the study at once. Is papa alone?”

“Of course not,” said her mother, “Mr Milne has been with him for quite half-an-hour. I was just wondering if we should ring for tea.”

“I will go to the pantry, if you like,” said Betty, “and see that it’s quite ready, so that the moment you ring it can come in.”

Frances by this time had already left the room, but she returned again almost immediately.

“It was only some papers that papa couldn’t find,” she said, “but he’s got them now. They’re just coming in to tea; shall I ring for it, mamma?”

Betty and the tea-tray made their appearance simultaneously, as did the lamps, and a moment or two later Mr Morion and his visitor crossed the little hall to the drawing-room.

Lady Emma greeted Mr Milne with what, for her, was unusual affability; the truth being that she was by no means devoid of curiosity as to the talked-of changes at the big house, though she would have scorned direct inquiry on the subject. The old lawyer glanced kindly at the two younger girls, saying to himself as he did so that their appearance had decidedly altered for the better.

“Not that they were ever plain-looking,” he reflected, “but they seem better turned out somehow – a touch less countrified.”

And he felt honestly pleased, for he had known the young people at Fir Cottage the greater part of their lives, and it had often struck him that their lines could scarcely be said to have fallen in pleasant places.

“You have brought us rather better weather,” said Frances, when her mother’s first remarks had subsided into silence. It seemed to her that Mr Milne’s manner was a trifle preoccupied, and neither Mr Morion nor his wife could be said to possess much of the art of conversation.

“Yes, really?” replied the lawyer. “I’m glad we put off a day or two in that case, for much depends on first impressions of a place.”

“You are not alone, then?” said Lady Emma; and three pairs of ears, at least, listened eagerly for his reply.

“Why, don’t you remember, my dear?” said Mr Morion, intercepting it. “I told you that Milne was coming down with a Mr Littlewood, who is thinking of renting Craig-Morion for a time. By-the-by,” he went on, “what does he think of the place?”

“He’s taken by it, decidedly,” said the lawyer, “and though my clients have no very special reason for letting it, still they will not be sorry to do so. A house always deteriorates more or less if left too long uninhabited, and – ”

At that moment came the unusual sound of the front door bell ringing – an energetic ring too, as if touched by a hand whose owner neither liked nor was accustomed to being kept waiting.

Chapter Four

Betty in Arms

Mr Milne started to his feet half involuntarily.

And – “He has been expecting this summons,” thought Frances.

“I am afraid,” he said, turning to his hostess apologetically, “I am afraid I must not allow myself to enjoy a cup of your excellent tea, for that must be Mr Littlewood. He’s been looking round the place with the bailiff this afternoon, and we arranged that he should call for me here, as we have a good deal of business before us this evening; so may I ask you to excuse – ”

“By no means,” said Mr Morion in a tone of unwonted heartiness. “We can’t think of excusing you, Milne. On the contrary, can you not ask Mr Littlewood to join us? A few moments’ delay in tackling your business cannot possibly signify.”

The three pairs of ears could scarcely credit what they heard, the three pairs of eyes exchanged furtive glances, while Lady Emma murmured something vaguely civil by way of endorsement of her husband’s proposal.

It was the lawyer who hesitated. To tell the truth, knowing the peculiarities of his present host as he did, he had been feeling during the last quarter of an hour somewhat nervous, and he now devoutly wished that he had not suggested Mr Littlewood’s calling for him at Fir Cottage, seeing that his talk with Mr Morion had been so much longer than he had anticipated.

“I should not have let myself be persuaded to come in to tea,” he thought, “and then I could have met Littlewood just outside.”

And now his misgivings, thanks to Mr Morion’s unusual amiability, turned in the other direction.

“Ten to one,” so his inner reflections ran on, “Littlewood will be annoyed at being asked to come in.” For by way of precautionary excuse for any possible surliness on the part of the representative Morion of the neighbourhood, should he and the stranger come across each other, poor Mr Milne had thought it politic to describe Fir Cottage and its inmates in no very attractive terms.

“I think, perhaps,” he began aloud, addressing his hostess, and rising as he spoke, “I think perhaps I had better not suggest Mr Littlewood’s joining us, though I shall take care to convey to him your kind wish that he should do so. I have been decoyed,” with a smile in his host’s direction, “into staying an unwarrantable time already, and as I must positively return to town to-morrow morning, I have really a good deal of work to get through to-night.”

Lady Emma would have yielded the point, and was beginning to say something to that effect, when her husband interrupted her. Mr Morion was nothing if not obstinate, and now that the fiat had gone forth that the stranger was to be admitted, enter he must at all costs.

“Nonsense, my good sir,” he said, in what for him was a tone of light jocularity. “There now! I hear them answering the door and your friend inquiring for you. Just ask him to come in,” and he opened the drawing-room door as he spoke. “I’ll step out with you myself.”

There was no longer any getting out of it for Mr Milne. He hurried forward with the intention of an explanatory word or two with Mr Littlewood, but in this he literally reckoned without his host, for Mr Morion was at his heels, and there was nothing for it but a formal introduction on the spot.

“Pray, come in,” said Mr Morion; “we are just having tea. My wife and daughters are in the drawing-room,” he said, with a wave of his hand in that direction, “and Mr Milne always pays us a visit when he comes down.”

The newcomer glanced at the lawyer in some surprise. This was scarcely the boorish hermit who had been described to him. All the same, he was not desirous of embarrassing himself with the acquaintanceship of this family, whose very existence he had almost ignored, or at least forgotten, till Mr Milne took occasion to refer to them.

But the afternoon was drawing in to evening; it was raw and chilly outside, and disagreeably draughty in the doorway where he stood, and the prospect of a hot cup of tea was not without its attraction.

“Thanks, many thanks,” he said. “We haven’t long to spare, but I should be sorry to hurry Milne,” and so saying he entered the little hall.

In the drawing-room, meantime, the suppressed excitement of the two younger of its four inmates was increasing momentarily, Eira, indeed, being so far carried away by it as to approach the half-open door, or doorway, so as to lose no word of the colloquy taking place outside.

“Betty! Frances!” she exclaimed, though in a whisper, her cheeks growing momentarily pinker, “he’s coming in! I do believe he’s coming in, and his voice doesn’t sound as if he were old at all. He’s tall, too, and” – with another furtive jerk of her head – “as far as I can see, I do believe he’s very good-looking.”

Frances was springing forward with uplifted finger, in dismay at Eira’s behaviour, when for once, to her relief, her mother took the matter out of her hands.

“Eira,” she said quickly, so that, even if her voice had been overheard by those outside, no chiding tone could have been suspected, “Eira, I am really ashamed of you. Sit down quietly and take your tea.”

Eira obeyed without a word, feeling, in point of fact, rather small; so no signs of agitation were discernible in the little group as the door was thrown open more widely to admit of Mr Morion ushering in his guests, the stranger naturally first.

“I have persuaded Mr Littlewood to join us for a few moments,” said the master of the house, as he introduced him to his wife. “Frances, another cup of tea, if you please.” And Betty quietly rang the bell as he spoke, returning immediately to her seat near the large table, on which was placed a lamp.

Mr Littlewood glanced at her, and then at her sisters, without appearing to do so.

“Milne has not much power of description,” he thought to himself; “if they were decently dressed they would not be bad-looking girls; indeed,” – and for a moment his glance reverted to Betty.

He would have been quite ready to open a conversation with her or with any of them, but, humiliating as it is to confess it, both the younger girls were by this time consumed by an agony of shyness. It was to Frances as she handed him some tea that he addressed his first observation – some triviality about the weather, to which she replied with perfect self-possession, taking the first opportunity of drawing her mother into the conversation, for such a thing as independent action on the part of even the eldest daughter would certainly have been treated by her parents as a most heinous offence.

By degrees Betty and Eira gained courage enough to glance at the stranger, now that his attention was taken up by their mother and sister.

He was young and – yes – he was decidedly good-looking. Rather fair than dark, with something winning and ingratiating about his whole manner and bearing, in spite of the decided tone and air of complete self-possession, if not self-confidence – almost amounting to lordly indifference to the effect he might produce on others.

As in duty bound, Mr Littlewood responded at once to Lady Emma’s first remark – some commonplace inquiry as to whether this was his first visit to that part of the country.

“Yes,” he replied, “practically so, though my mother informs me that as children we spent some months in this neighbourhood, but I don’t remember it. That’s to say, I remember nothing of the country, though I do recollect the house and garden, which seemed to me all that was charming and beautiful – and mysterious too. The garden was skirted by a wood, fascinating yet alarming. Children’s memories are queer things.”

“Do you think it was near here?” said Frances, “anywhere about Craig Bay? If so, it would be interesting to revisit it.”

Betty and Eira glanced at her in mute admiration. How could she have the courage to address this exceedingly smart personage with such ease and self-possession? Nor did the manner of his reply diminish their wonder. He seemed to look at Frances as if he had not seen her before, though at the same time no one could possibly have accused him of the slightest touch of discourtesy.

“I haven’t the vaguest idea,” he said, “and there would be small chance of my recognising the place if I did see it.”

“How does Craig-Morion strike you?” asked Lady Emma, and the well-bred indifference of her tone was greatly appreciated by Betty and Eira, who by this time had labelled the newcomer as “horridly stuck-up and affected.”

“Craig-Morion?” he repeated. “Oh, I think it may serve our purpose very well for the time. Of course it should have a complete overhauling, but Morion doesn’t think it worth while to do much to it, and, substantially speaking, it’s not in bad repair. I think, however, I shall be able to report sufficiently well of it to make my sisters – or sister more probably – come down to see it for themselves.”

Even Lady Emma was slightly nettled at his tone of half-contemptuous approval of the place which to the family at Fir Cottage represented so much.

“It is a pity,” she said, speaking more stiffly than before, “that the head of the family should never live at what was – is – really their original home.”

Mr Littlewood raised his eyebrows.

“Why should he?” he said carelessly; “he’s got everything in the world he wants at Witham-Meldon and at his Scotch place. He’d feel this awfully out-of-the-world.”

This last speech was too much for the feelings of one person in the company. Shyness disappeared in indignation, and, to the utter amazement of her audience, Betty’s voice, pitched in a higher key than usual, broke the silence.