God's Good Man Part 26

"Ah, you'll never get into no trouble with Gove'nment, Missis Tapple!" her gossips were wont to a.s.sure her, "For you be as ezack as ezack!"

A compliment which Mrs. Tapple accepted without demur, feeling it to be no more than her just due. She was, however, in spite of her 'ezack' methods, always a little worried when anything out of the ordinary occurred, and she began to feel slightly fl.u.s.tered directly she saw Maryllia swing open her garden gate. She had already, during the last few days, been at some trouble to decipher various telegrams which the lady of the Manor had sent down by Primmins for immediate despatch, such as one to a certain Lord Roxmouth which had run as follows:--"No time to reply to your letter. In love with pigs and poultry."

"It IS 'pigs and poultry,' ain't it?" she had asked anxiously of Primmins, after studying the message for a considerable time through, her spectacles. And Primmins, gravely studying it, too, had replied:--

"It is undoubtedly 'pigs and poultry.'"

"And it IS 'in love' you think?" pursued Mrs. Tapple, with perplexity furrowing her brow.

"It is certainly 'in love,'" rejoined Primmins, and the faintest suggestion of a wink affected his left eyelid.

Thereupon the telegram was 'sent through' to Riversford on its way to London, though not without serious misgivings in Mrs. Tapple's mind as to whether it might not be returned with a 'Gove'nment'

query as to its correctness. And now, when Maryllia herself entered the office, and said smilingly, "Good-morning! Some foreign telegram-forms, please!" Mrs. Tapple felt that the hour was come when her powers of intelligence were about to be tried to the utmost; and she accordingly began to experience vague qualms of uneasiness.

"Foreign telegram-forms, Miss? Is it for Ameriky?"

"Oh, no!--only for Paris,"--and while the old lady fumbled nervously in her 'official' drawer, Maryllia glanced around the little business establishment with amused interest. She had a keen eye for small details, and she noticed with humorous appreciation Mrs.

Tapple's pink sun-bonnet hanging beside the placarded 'Post Office Savings Bank' regulations, and a half side of bacon suspended from the ceiling, apparently for 'curing' purposes, immediately above the telegraphic apparatus. After a little delay, the required pale yellow 'Foreign and Colonial' forms were found, and Mrs. Tapple carefully flattened them out, and set them on her narrow office counter.

"Will you have a pencil, or pen and ink, Miss?" she enquired.

"Pen and ink, please," replied Maryllia; whereat the old postmistress breathed a sigh of relief. It would be easier to make out anything at all 'strange and uncommon' in pen and ink than in pencil-marks which had a trick of 'rubbing.' Leaning lightly against the counter Maryllia wrote in a clear bold round hand:

"Miss CICELY BOURNE,

"17 RUE CROISIE, PARIS.

"Come to me at once. Shall want you all summer. Have wired Gigue. Start to-morrow.

"MARYLLIA VANCOURT."

She pushed this over to Mrs. Tapple, who thankfully noting that she was writing another, took time to carefully read and spell over every word, and mastered it all without difficulty. Meanwhile Maryllia prepared her second message thus:

"Louis GIGUE,

"CONSERVATOIRE, PARIS.

"Je desire que Cicely pa.s.se l'ete avec moi et qu'elle arrive immediatement. Elle peut tres-bien continuer ses etudes ici.

Vous pouvez suivre, cher maitre, a votre plaisir.

"MARYLLIA VANCOURT."

"It's rather long,"--she said thoughtfully, as she finished it. "But for Gigue it is necessary to explain fully. I hope you can make it out?"

Poor Mrs. Tapple quivered with inward agitation as she took the terrible telegram in hand, and made a brave effort to rise to the occasion.

"Yes, Miss," she stammered, "Louis Gigue--G.i.g.u.e., that's right-- yes--at the Conservatory, Paris."

"'No, no!" said Maryllia, with a little laugh--"Not Conservatory-- Conservatoire--TOIRE, t.o.i.r.e., the place where they study music."

"Oh, yes--I see!" and Mrs. Tapple tried to smile knowingly, as she fixed her spectacles more firmly on her nose, and began to murmur slowly--"Je desire, d.e.sire--oh, yes--desire!--que--q.u.e.--Cicely- -yes that's all right!--pa.s.se, an e to pa.s.s--yes--now let me wait a minute; one minute, Miss, if you please!--l'ete--l apostrophe e, stroke across the e,--t, and e, stroke across the e---"

Maryllia's eyebrows went up in pretty perplexity.

"Oh dear, I'm afraid you won't be able to get it right that way!"

she said--"I had better write it in English,--why, here's Mr.

Walden!" This, as she saw the clergyman's tall athletic figure entering Mrs. Tapple's tiny garden,--"Good-morning, Mr. Walden!" and as he raised his hat, she smiled graciously--"I want to send off a French telegram, and I'm afraid it's rather difficult---"

A glance at Mrs. Tapple explained the rest, and Walden's eyes twinkled mirthfully.

"Perhaps _I_ can be of some use, Miss Vancourt," he said. "Shall I try?"

Maryllia nodded, and he walked into the little office.

"Let me send off those telegrams for you, Mrs. Tapple," he said.

"You know you often allow me to amuse myself in that way! I haven't touched the instrument for a month at least, and am getting quite out of practice. May I come in?"

Mrs. Tapple's face shone with relief and gladness.

"Well now, Mr. Walden, if it isn't a real blessin' that you happened to look in this mornin'!" she exclaimed--"For now there won't be no delay,--not but what I knew a bit o' French as a gel, an' I'd 'ave made my way to spell it out somehow, no matter how slow,--but there!

you're that handy that 'twon't take no time, an' Miss Vancourt will be sure of her message 'avin' gone straight off from here correct,-- an' if they makes mistakes at Riversford, 'twon't be my fault!"

While she thus ran on, Walden was handling the telegraphic apparatus. His back was turned to Maryllia, but he felt her eyes upon him,--as indeed they were,--and there was a slight flush of colour in his bronzed cheeks as he presenty looked round and said:

"May I have the telegram?"

"There are two--both for Paris," replied Maryllia, handing him the filled-up forms--"One is quite easy--in English." "And the other quite difficult--in French!"--he laughed. "Let me see if I can make it out correctly." Thereupon he read aloud: "'Louis Gigue, Conservatoire, Paris. Je desire que Cicely pa.s.se l'ete avec moi et qu'elle arrive immediatement. Elle peut tres-bien continuer ses etudes ici. Vous pouvez suivre, cher maitre, a votre plaisir.' Is that right?"

Maryllia's eyes opened a little more widely,--like blue flowers wakening to the sun. This country clergyman's p.r.o.nunciation of French was perfect,--more perfect than her own trained Parisian accent. Mrs. Tapple clasped her dumpy red hands in a silent ecstasy of admiration. 'Pa.s.son' knew everything!

"Is it right?" Walden repeated.

Maryllia gave a little start.

"Oh I beg your pardon! Yes--quite right!--thank you ever so much!"

Click-click-click-click! The telegraphic apparatus was at work, and the unofficial operator was entirely engrossed in his business. Mrs.

Tapple stood respectfully dumb and motionless, watching him.

Maryllia, leaning against the ledge of the office counter, watched him, too. She took quiet observation of the well-poised head, covered with its rich brown-grey waving locks of hair,--the broad shoulders, the white firm muscular hands that worked the telegraphic instrument, and she was conscious of the impression of authority, order, knowledge, and self-possession, which seemed to have come into the little office with him, and to have created quite a new atmosphere. Outside, in the small garden, among mignonette and early flowering sweetpeas, Plato sat on his huge haunches in lion-like dignity, blinking at the sun,--while Walden's terrier Nebbie executed absurd but entirely friendly gambols in front of him, now pouncing down on two forepaws with nose to ground and eyes leering sideways,--now wagging an excited tail with excessive violence to demonstrate goodwill and a desire for amity.--and anon giving a short yelp of suppressed feeling,--to all of which conciliatory approaches Plato gave no other response than a vast yawn and meditative stare.

The monotonous click-click-click continued,--now stopping for a second, then going on more rapidly again, till Maryllia began to feel quite unreasonably impatient. She found something irritating at last in the contemplation of the back of Walden's cranium,--it was too well-shaped, she decided,--she could discover no fault in it.

Humming a tune carelessly under her breath, she turned towards Mrs.

Tapple's small grocery department, and feigned to be absorbed in an admiring survey of peppermint b.a.l.l.s and toffee. Certain glistening squares of sticky white substance on a corner shelf commended themselves to her notice as specimens of stale 'nougat,' wherein the almonds represented a remote antiquity,--and a ma.s.s of stringy yellow matter laid out in lumps on blue paper and marked 'One Penny per ounce' claimed attention as a certain 'hardbake' peculiar to St.

Rest, which was best eaten in a highly glutinous condition. A dozen or so of wrinkled apples which, to judge by their damaged and worn exteriors, must have been several autumns old, kept melancholy companions.h.i.+p with a.s.sorted packages of the 'Choice Tea' whereof the label was displayed in the window, and Maryllia was just about wondering whether she would, or could buy anything out of the musty- fusty collection, when the click-click-click stopped abruptly, and Walden stepped forth from the interior 'den' of the post-office.

"That's all right, Miss Vancourt," he said. "Your telegrams are sent correctly as far as Riversford anyhow, and there is one operator there who is acquainted with the French language. Whether they will transmit correctly from London I shouldn't like to say!--we are a singular nation, and one of our singularities is that we scorn to know the language of our nearest neighbours!"

She smiled up at him,--and as his glance met hers he was taken aback, as it were, by the pellucid beauty and frank innocence of the grave dark-blue eyes that shone so serenely into his own.