Deep Moat Grange Part 14

That was actually the way she spoke of her grandmother--or step-grandmother, rather. And, indeed, that good lady only laughed, and, shaking her head at the minister, repeated, what I afterwards found to be her favourite maxim--that "young folk would be young folk."

The philosophy of which was that they would get over it all too soon.

The Hayfork Minister nodded back to Susan, and I was not sorry to see him (as I thought) much taken up with the picture-book girl, as in my heart I called Constantia. For in our house at home, up in the attic, there are a lot of old "Annuals" and "Keepsakes"--oh, I don't know how old, all in faded watered-silk covers loose at the back--some faded and some where the colour has run, but choke full of pictures of scenery, all camels and spiky palms and humpy camels, with "Palmyra" and "Carthage" written beneath time about. But these are not half bad, though deadly alike. The weary parts are the pictures of girls--leaning out of windows before they have done their was.h.i.+ng and hair-brus.h.i.+ng in the morning. I should just like to see my father catch them at it. That was called "Dreaming of Thee." And there were lots of others. "Sensibility" was a particularly bad one. She was spread all over a sofa, and had a canary on her finger. She had saved it from a little snappy-yappy spaniel--only just, for two tail feathers were floating down. And there were two big dewdrops of tears on her cheeks to show how sorry she was for the canary bird--or, perhaps, for the spaniel.

Anyway, it was the only time I ever really liked a spaniel.

Well, I needn't describe the others. At any rate, if you've ever seen the "Keepsake" kind of young women, you won't have forgotten them. You will cherish a spite, especially if you have had to stay in one room and choose between looking at them and flattening your nose against the window-panes, down which the water is running in big blobs, during a week of wet holiday weather.

Constantia was a "Keepsake" girl.

I suppose it must be, as it is with snakes. Some like them and some not. I don't. But I will never deny (not being, like Elsie, a girl) that Constantia was good looking. If (and the Lord have mercy on your soul!) you really liked that sort of thing, Constantia was just the sort of thing you would like.

CHAPTER XIV

BROWN PAINT--VARNISHED!

We had a merry afternoon and laughed--eh, how we laughed! I heard all about the girls, how they had just been at school, and how Constantia had just come home, full up of all the perfections, and deportment, and the 'ologies, and how many men wanted to marry her--were dying to, in fact! That might be all right. It was Harriet who told me--though that does not make it any the more likely to be true (I am sorry to say). For I can see that that young woman was trying to take me in all the time.

"But for the parson, we would have a dance!" whispered Harriet; "but as he will sit there and tell Stancy about her 'azure' eyes till all's blue, you and I can go for a walk instead--shall we?"

I didn't want to, you may imagine. The difficulty was how to say No.

Indeed, Harriet never asked me. She had put on a smart little summer hat, and we were out on the moor quicker than I can write it.

"Mind you," she said, laying her hand confidingly (as I then thought) on my arm, "don't you ever dare to tell Stancy that her eyes are like to the vault of heaven, or like forget-me-nots wet with dew, or like turquoises, or the very colour of her sky-blue silk scarf. For, first of all, it's not true, and it is wrong to tell lies. More than that, she will tell _me_. And I like--well" (she added this bit softly, taking a long look at me) "never mind what I like. Perhaps it's as well that you shouldn't know."

Then she kicked away a pebble with the toe of one tiny boot and appeared to be embarra.s.sed. I think, now, that she knew she had a pretty foot.

Anyway I began to be conscious she was a nice girl, and to be sorry for her--a way men have. Men are such wise things, and not vain at all.

Don't think I forgot. I was always just going to tell her about Elsie, when she darted off into something else. She was constantly doing that--a most ill-regulated and disconcerting girl. I knew she would certainly have been interested in Elsie. The two had so much in common.

We were going through some straggling trees on the edge of Brom Common, when Harriet stopped and turned her eyes on me, as if she would have drowned me in them. I didn't know before that they were so big and dark and s.h.i.+ny--especially in dusky places. Harriet Caw knew, however.

"What colour are my eyes," she demanded. "Quick, now, don't cheat!"

"I don't know!" I said truthfully. "I never noticed."

Then she got mad. You see, I had no experience and didn't know enough to make a shot at it. For girls always notice eyes--or think they do.

And when they go to see a man condemned in court for extra special murder, they sigh and say, "What very nice eyes he has--who would have thought it?"

And if he had been tried by a jury of girls, he would have got off every time--because of these same nice eyes. That is why the justice of a country is conducted by men. One reason, at least.

"Well, then, look!" she cried, making them the size of billiard b.a.l.l.s right under my nose. It was, I own, rather nice, but trying. I had a feeling that Elsie would not have liked it, really.

So I said, "Come out where a fellow can see them then!" And made as if to go out on the moor. But Harriet Caw didn't care about the moor, being a town girl, as I suppose.

"No, here--tell me now!" she said.

So as I had to say something, I told her they were the colour of brown paint.

That was true. They were, but she was quite mad, and gave my arm a fling. This surprised me, and I said--

"Why, I thought that you were the kind of girl who never cared to be told about her eyes, and stuff of that kind. You said just now about Miss Constantia's----"

"Never mind about M--iss Con-stan-ti-a's," she said, making the word as long as she could--she was mad now and patting the short, stiff heather with her little bronze boot; "attend to me, if you please. And so you think my eyes are the colour of brown paint; is that the best you can do?"

I thought a while, and she kept glaring up at me till I felt like a hen with its beak to a chalk line--I forget the word--something you are when you go on a platform and do silly things the man tells you.

So, hoping she would stop, I said at last, "Well, perhaps they are more s.h.i.+ny, like brown paint--varnished."

But this didn't please her either. Indeed, it was difficult to please Harriet Caw at all. She said that I was twice as stupid as a cow, and asked where I had lived all my life.

"In Breckonside," I said, but I added that I had often been with my father at East Dene. And once I had crossed the ferry all by myself and spent Easter Monday at Thoisby itself.

"Humph," she said, wrinkling up her nose with great contempt. "I suppose that you have never even heard of London."

I told her "Yes, of course." And that I could tell her the number of its inhabitants.

But this she didn't seem to think clever, or, indeed, to care about at all.

She only said, "Are all country boys as stupid as you are?"

To be called a boy like that made me angry, and I ran after her, determined to pay her out. I was going to show her that country boys could just be as sharp as there was any need for.

But quick as I was, this city girl was quicker, and she slipped across the road almost at the very place where we had found the last traces of poor Harry Foster. She dived among the underbrush by the stile, and I lost sight of her altogether.

But the next moment I heard a cry. You had better believe I wasted no time till I got there. I ran, opening a good, stout clasp knife that father had given me--or, if not "given" exactly, had seen me with, and not taken away from me. It comes to the same thing.

Well, just a little away across a green glade, all pine needles and sun dapplings, stood Mad Jeremy, and he had Harriet Caw by the arm. I went at him as fast as I could--which was a silly thing to do, for, of course, with his strength he could have done me up in two ticks of a clock. Only, as mostly happens when one does fine things, it was all over before I thought.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Just a little way across a green glade--stood Mad Jeremy--he had Harriett Caw by the hand."]

But when Mad Jeremy saw me, or, perhaps, before (I do not want to take credit for anything that isn't my due), he let go of Harriet Caw, saying just "She isn't the pretty one! What is she doing here?" And with a skip and a jump he was gone. That is, so far as I could see.

Then Harriet swooned away in my arms, toppling over like a ladder slipping off the side of a house. At least, I suppose that is what they call it. But at that time I had had no experience of swoons. For Elsie never went on like that. At all events, Harriet Caw clutched me about the neck, her fingers working as if they would claw off my collar, and she laughing and crying both at once. Funny it was, but though it made a fellow squirm--not altogether so horrid as you might think. But I did not know what to do. I tried hard to think whether it was the palms of her hands or the backs of her ears that you ought to rub, or whether I should lay her down or stand her up against a tree. I knew there was something. Then I got in a funk lest, after all, it should be the soles of her feet.

But Mad Jeremy had not altogether gone away. He had been watching, and now popped his head and s.h.i.+ny ringlets round a tree trunk, which brought me to myself.

"Ah--ha!" he cried, "I'll tell the pretty one about these goings on!"

And, quick as a flash, that brought Harriet Caw to herself, also. It did better than splas.h.i.+ng water or rubbing hands. The moment before she had been all rigid like a lump of wood in my arms. But as soon as the words were out of Mad Jeremy's mouth, she was standing before me, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng lightning, and her elbows drawn a little in to her sides.

Mad? Well, rather. She was hopping, just.

"So _I'm_ not the pretty one," she said--whispered it, rather, with a husky sound, like frying bacon in her voice. "Oh, I see--that's why my eyes are like brown paint--varnished! Well, who's the pretty one?

Answer me that!"