Читать книгу The Other Man - Mary Gaunt - Страница 7

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The tea-table this evening received two additions in the shape of what Mrs. Grant called the station-experience young men. One was a tall, lank youth of twenty, by name Edward Clegg, gawky and red-haired, and the other, Arthur King, was a dark-haired little boy of fifteen, small for his age, and sadly in want of a good wash. They both appeared tongue-tied in the presence of their "boss," and gazed shyly at the two pretty girls who, sitting side by side, formed such a marked contrast to the weather-beaten daughters of the Grant family.

Lily and Ann had been over to Mullin's Hill, a small township about ten miles away, helping at a prayer meeting. They had been "privileged" to meet a captain (feminine) and two other members (masculine) of the Salvation Army whom she had brought in her train, and were so full of their afternoon's experiences that at first all Dolly's attempts to draw them on the subject of her new friend were a dead failure.

"It was a blessed time," said Ann, addressing Ruth specially as the least frivolous of the two; "a blessed time, Ruth, and truly I felt it was specially blest to us. Three souls were called to repentance and rescued to the Lord; and really I felt my soul leap within me when I looked at the captain's face. She is not a young woman, but as she prayed aloud I saw that the beauty of holiness was in her face. Ah, that is the true beauty, Ruth, the beauty of holiness."

"All the same," put in Dolly boldly, "I'd like to have physical beauty; and if I had it and was then damned because of it I'd think it very unfair—and cruel. Yes, I would."

"Dorothy!" Ann laid down her scone and held up both her hands. "You are wicked, you are blasphemous. You are as wicked and lost as the railway navvy I spoke to to-day."

"Why, what did he say?" asked Ruth curiously.

"He was passing in front of the Mechanics' Institute, and I heard him ask another man 'What all the —— howling was about.'" (Ann was not troubled with any false modesty, and gave his expression in full.) "Of course I stopped and spoke to him. I spoke to him seriously. I implored him to wash and be clean, and he said he was clean, and the only use he had for water at present was to put a little whisky in it. Such depravity is terrible, isn't it? But what can you expect when the engineer in charge is just as bad himself. He is just a beer-drinking sot."

Ruth had learned in the last twenty-four hours that to argue against the objectionable manner in which her new-found relatives rammed their religious convictions down the throat of every passing stranger was worse than useless, so she merely said—

"Railway at Mullin's Hill? That'll bring it quite close, won't it? What's the engineer's name?"

"I don't know. Matson—Mayland."

"Maitland," said young Clegg. "Dick Maitland, I know, because he's a great chum of Marsden's. My, how bad Marsden's hand is!"

Dolly pinched her sister. The conversation of its own accord had taken the turn she most desired.

"That's bad. I'm sorry for that," said Mrs. Grant, not in reference to Marsden's wounded hand, but to his friendship with the objectionable engineer of the new railway. "I was in hopes Marsden was turning over a new leaf."

"Why, Aunt, what's the matter with him?" asked Ruth, urged thereto by a nudge from her sister.

"Well, my dear, he is not a true Christian yet; anybody can see that. But we were in hopes—at least Ann said——"

"His case is hopeless if he gets with that Maitland," snapped that young lady.

"But what's the matter with him?" persisted Ruth. "He seems a gentleman."

"He was a son of Dr. Marsden—Dr. Marsden of St. Kilda, you know," explained Mrs. Grant, who apparently had a little more in common with the outside world than her daughter Ann. "When the old man died he didn't leave much—but what he did the son soon spent, gambling and drinking, I believe. He was regularly travelling on his uppers when he came here—not a red cent to bless himself with. Oh, yes, he's a gentleman, if you call that being a gentleman."

"I loves Woger," remarked Vera, "an' he loves me. I'm goin' to mawwy him."

"Oh, I didn't understand it had gone as far as that, Vera; let me congratulate you," laughed Dolly.

When the table was cleared all the women brought out their work and the men pored over the newspaper, and Dolly found a moment to whisper to her sister—

"There, I told you it was all right. I told you he was a gentleman. I shall cultivate his acquaintance."

"I don't know," said Ruth, dubiously; "they didn't speak well of him."

"Would you have liked him if they had?" pouted Dolly. "I'm sure I should hate a man they praised," which was so exactly Ruth's feeling that she decided to say no more on the subject.

"Oh dear," said Dolly, "I wish prayer time would come."

At half-past 8 Mr. Grant folded up his paper.

"Ann," he said, "ring the bell for prayers."

Ann pulled up the window and let in the cold night air, which blew keen across the lake, rung the old cow-bell lustily, and then retiring to the passage outside, rang it again. Lily distributed bibles and hymn-books and took her seat at the American organ, and the rest of the family seated themselves round the dining-table, hardly in decorous silence, for they squabbled in undertones over their places and books, and then the servants filed in. After the maids came the solemn Chinaman, Tom Sing, and behind him—Ruth looked for him eagerly—young Marsden. She could hardly believe her eyes, so great was the change in him. Tall, upright, cleanly shaven all but a moustache, and well dressed, he looked every inch a gentleman—the only gentleman, she thought, in the room. He blushed furiously as he caught her eye, and then, after stealing a glance at Dolly, who was demurely looking down, apparently became absorbed in the Bible that was handed to him.

After Mr. Grunt had read the Bible aloud came a long extempore prayer, in which each member of the family was prayed for separately and by name. Last night Ruth had grown crimson when her uncle prayed aloud that she and her sister might see the error of their ways, and be brought to a sincere repentance for the levity of their conduct. To-night, however, she heard the prayer for herself and Dolly with equanimity, and only felt her cheeks tingle when her uncle mentioned Roger Marsden's name—thanked God publicly that he, too, was turning his face heavenward, and praying that he might be guided and kept in that holy path which he had that evening chosen. Then they rose to their feet and sang two hymns of Moody and Sankey's with rousing choruses, which was the only part of the whole service to which the children paid the least attention. When Mr. Grant had pronounced a blessing, he rose up well satisfied with himself and advanced towards the newcomer.

"Well, Marsden," he said, "I'm glad to see you here. I'm glad to see that at last you have been brought to think on your immortal soul."

Marsden flushed angrily, but he turned it off with a laugh.

"Well, I think it's my mortal hand I'm concerned about just at present, sir," he said pleasantly. "Miss Grant," and he glanced at Dolly, "kindly promised to put fresh bandages on for me."

"If thy right hand offend thee," began Mr. Grant solemnly; but Dolly, drawing her work basket towards her, interrupted him ruthlessly.

"It isn't his right hand, uncle; it's his left—and as for cutting it off, he very nearly did do that. What we want to do is to mend it up again."

"Dorothy, his immortal soul is——"

But Dorothy felt she had had quite enough of her uncle's religion for one night, and determined to stop his flow of language.

"It's no good, uncle," she said, "it's really no good. Don't you see you ought to let him alone for a bit. How is the good seed sown this evening to take root if you go prodding it up in this manner just to see if it's grown."

Her uncle regarded her doubtfully. He could not divest himself of the idea that she was laughing at him while using his own pet forms of speech. Still, according to his lights, there was nothing to complain of in the speech, so he took a turn slowly up the room, while Dolly drew some old linen from her basket and began bandaging Marsden's hand, the whole family looking on.

"We went to school with a Marsden once, when we were little girls, didn't we, Ruth?" said Dolly. "Don't you remember Charlie Marsden?"

"I have a brother Charlie," said Marsden, looking down on the pretty dark face so close to him; "he went to China five years ago."

"Did he?" said Dolly. "Poor Charlie, I hope he's making his fortune. I liked him so much. If I remember rightly, though, the affection was not reciprocated. I believe he preferred Ruth."

"P'raps it wasn't my brother."

"He was a son of Dr. Marsden's of St. Kilda."

Marsden nodded.

"So am I," he said.

"Are you really? Well then, we must be friends," said Dolly, "because I loved your brother so much."

Before the young man could reply to this outspoken offer of friendship, Mr. Grant came up and addressed him again.

"You won't be much good among the sheep, Marsden, for a week or two to come. You can ride, can't you? Well, I think I'll send you down to Titura. The overseer wants a week's holiday, and I told him I'd send a man down to take his place. There's not much doing there just at present, and I think you can manage. You'd better be ready to start at 6 to-morrow morning, and take the old grey mare. Do you understand?"

"Yea, Sir," said Marsden, "I'll go."

"And do take care of your hand, now," said Dolly. "It's really very cruel of you, uncle, to deprive me of my patient when he was getting on so well. Good night, Mr. Marsden, good night. Mind that hand's well before you come back."

That night Ruth took her sister to task once more when they were safe in each other's arms, warm and cosy under the blankets, which Dolly declared was the only cosy place in the whole house.

"Dolly, dear, I don't want to be unkind, but really—really, do you think it wise or right to—to be so friendly with a young man as you were with—with——"

"Roger Marsden, I suppose you mean. Ruth, I told you before I meant to be friends with him. Charlie Marsden's brother, too."

"But, Dolly dear—we are so lonely—there's no one to care for us—and we ought to be careful. We know nothing about this young man, except that he looks nice. Dolly, I don't want to be a prude, but to make friends with a man whom they all say is—well, rather a bad lot."

Ruth got it out at last, and felt virtuous. The fact of the matter was she felt rather drawn to the young fellow herself, and was only abusing him and warning her sister from a strict sense of duty and an uneasy feeling that she, as the eldest, was responsible for all shortcomings.

"You dear old thing," said Dolly, giving her sister a loving hug. "I'm quite sure there's no harm in us two girls being nice and friendly to our old schoolmate's brother. If he's down on his luck, so much the more he needs us. And I'll be his friend and so'll you—you know you will. Come, Ruth, promise to be friendly. Don't be silly and prudish."

"I promise," said Ruth in sleepy tones. "Dolly, I'm so sleepy—do let's go to sleep."

"Having settled the affairs of the nation satisfactorily, we will," and Dolly nestled down beside her sister and was sound asleep long before the elder girl had decided whether she had done right or not.