The Girls of St. Olave's Part 5

Mrs. Lyon looked down at him tenderly.

"It's hard to leave him," she said softly, "oh, so hard! My brother, Jim, who lives at Mixham Junction, has promised to take him, but I don't know what his wife is like. Jim don't never say much about her, and he'd be sure to if she was the right one for him, but Jim will be good to him, I know, and the Lord Jesus is our best Friend and He is the Good Shepherd. I often have to say that to myself to comfort myself."

"Yes!" said Denys, sympathetically, her eyes on the almost baby face nestled on the pillow, her thoughts busy with wondering whether she could have left Jerry so trustingly in G.o.d's care. And Jerry had been her brother, not her child. She felt she could more willingly have had Jerry die, than have died herself and left him to other people to care for.

Her thoughts came back to the present with a start. "Mixham Junction!"

she said, "that is only five miles from my home in Old Keston!"

The sick woman's face flushed and she laid her hand beseechingly on Denys's.

"Oh, Miss!" she said, "would you--would you sometimes--just sometimes go and see my Harry, just to let them know there is somebody as takes an interest, that he isn't quite friendless, and you could remind him of Jesus? I'm not sure about Jim's doing that. Would you, Miss?"

Once more Denys looked at the little face, and thought of Jerry.

"Yes!" she said, "while I am in Old Keston or going there to see mother, and while Harry is in Mixham, I certainly will."

Nellie Lyon's eyes filled with tears.

"I thank you from the bottom of my heart," she said.

Denys rose. A glance at her watch had told her it was getting very late. What could have become of Gertrude?

She went out once more. No one at all like the missing couple had come. Indeed she herself had been sitting in full view of the gate for more than an hour. Already the sun was sinking and the air was growing chill, and a mist was gathering under the trees in the Landslip. If she waited much longer she would have a dreary enough walk under those trees in the dusk. It was not a cheerful prospect, and what would Charlie think if she were not at the station to meet him?

That and the growing darkness decided her. Hastily scribbling a note to be left with the woman in case Gertrude and Cecil turned up, she hurried away.

It was not a pleasant walk. The sea sounded mournfully at the foot of the rocks below her, and the darkness under the trees was not rea.s.suring, and seemed to fall deeper each moment. She wished she had taken the upper, though much longer road, or that she had started half an hour earlier and left Gertrude and Cecil to their own devices. Even when the moon, the great round moon, came up out of the sea and shone through the trees upon her path, it only seemed to make the shadows blacker and more eerie, till she remembered that it was the Easter moon, and thought of Him who had knelt beneath the trees of Gethsemane under that moon, on this night of His agony.

After that, thinking of Him, she did not feel afraid, and at last she rang at Mrs. Henchman's door.

Audrey ran out to open it.

"Well! I thought you were never coming! Where are the others?"

"I don't know," said Denys, "I can't think."

CHAPTER VI.

A TICKET FOR ONE.

As Cecil very justly observed to Gertrude, it was a perfect afternoon for a ride, and the two went gaily along the upper road to the Landslip, till they came to a sign-post in a place where four roads met.

Gertrude jumped off her machine and stood gazing up at the directions indicated.

"You see!" she observed, "we have lots of time before that slow donkey gets there. We might make a detour and get into the road again later on. We don't want to sit staring down the Landslip till they arrive.

Besides, we've seen it all yesterday, haven't we?"

Cecil acquiesced. It amused him to see Gertrude's cool way of arranging matters, and it was certainly less trouble to be entertained and directed hither and thither than to take the initiative and entertain. At any rate it was a change.

But bicycles, like donkeys, are not always satisfactory means of locomotion. The pair had not gone much further when Gertrude's tyre punctured, and a halt was called while Cecil repaired it.

Cecil was not a good workman; he made a long job of it, and when at last they started again, time was getting on and they had but reached a small colony of houses when Gertrude exclaimed that her tyre was down again.

She glanced round at the little cl.u.s.ter of houses. "There's a cycle shop," she said, "and a tea shop next door. How convenient. We had better have the punctured tyre mended for us and we can have tea while we wait!"

Cecil obediently wheeled her cycle into one shop and followed her into the second.

He found her seated at a little table, examining the watch on her wrist.

"Guess what the time is," she said laughing. "Let us hope they won't wait tea for us at the Landslip, for I am sure we shall never get there! The woman here says there is no way of getting there except by going back to the cross-road!"

Cecil looked rather blank. He had not at all counted on failing to keep the appointment at the cottage, or on running the risk of thereby offending Mrs. Henchman, and where would be his promise to himself of making it up to Audrey at tea-time?

However, the tea was already being placed on the table, a plate of cakes was at his elbow, and Gertrude was asking if he took milk and sugar.

He shrugged his shoulders mentally. "In for a penny, in for a pound,"

he said to himself, "here I am and I may as well enjoy myself."

So while Denys waited and watched for them in the Landslip cottage, these two laughed and ate and chatted and at last mounted their bicycles and rode off back to Whitecliff in a leisurely manner, arriving five minutes after Audrey, dressed in her very best white frock, had departed to her breaking-up school concert, leaving Denys to hastily change her dress, eat a much-needed tea and rush up to the station to meet Charlie.

Gertrude came in with her usual easy manner.

"Well!" she said, "here we are! Where is everybody? Did you think we were lost?"

"I am awfully sorry we missed," said Cecil quickly. "The fact is we got into a road that did not go there at all, and then Miss Gertrude had a puncture, and then a second, and by the time we got back to the right road we knew it was too late to do anything."

Gertrude looked at the tea-table approvingly.

"I will ask you to tea, Cecil, as Denys does not. Where is Mrs.

Henchman, Denys? You don't seem very communicative to-night."

"She is lying down till Charlie comes," said Denys. "We had a bother with the donkey and it upset her. Audrey had to come back with her and I went on to the Landslip to find you. I have only just got back.

Audrey has gone to her concert; she was able to get a ticket for you after all, and she said she was sorry she could not wait for you, as she was playing, but she would come and speak to you in the interval."

Gertrude glanced at the ticket and tossed it on to the table.

"I shan't go all by myself," she said, "I shall go and hear the Stainer. I shall like it much better; it is too utterly dull to sit by one's self."

Denys's heart sank. She had so counted on this treat alone with Charlie, and had secretly been much pleased when Audrey and Gertrude had planned to go to the concert together, and now here she was saddled with Gertrude's company. Besides, what would Audrey say?

She poured out the tea and as she put milk into the third cup, she almost smiled.

She had forgotten Cecil! Of course, though there was but one ticket for the concert, there were no tickets needed for the Church!