A Changed Heart Part 11

"I was saying how remarkably well you were looking, ma'am," said the captain, raising his voice, "and that this Redmon is a very fine old place."

"It's not!" screamed Lady Leroy, viciously; "it's the hatefulest, daftest, uncomfortablest hole ever anybody set foot in! Natty!"

"Yes, ma'am!" said Natty. "What is it?"

"Is old Nettleby planting them potatoes to-day?"

"Yes, of course he is."

"He'll plant Carters where he ought to plant Early Blues! I know he will!" cried the old lady in an ecstasy of alarm; "run out as fast as you can, Natty, and tell him not to plant any Carters in the three-cornered field. Run, run, run!"

Natty knew Lady Leroy a great deal too well to expostulate. "I will be back directly," she said, in a low voice, the laughing light in her eyes still, as she pa.s.sed her visitor; "do not get into trouble if you can help it, in my absence."

She was gone, and Lady Leroy, with her eyes fixed on the opposite wall, seemed to have gone off into a fit of musing. Captain Cavendish tried to look about him, which he had not ventured to do before, under those basilisk eyes. It was a large square room, like all the rest in the house, and stiflingly close and warm. No wonder, for a small cooking-stove was burning away, and every window was closed and shuttered. A bed stood in one corner, an old-fas.h.i.+oned clock ticked in a loud hoa.r.s.e voice on the mantel-piece, a small round table stood at the old lady's elbow, and the floor was covered with a carpet that had been Brussels once, but which was dirty, and colorless, and ragged now. There was an open cupboard with dishes, and a sort of pantry with a half gla.s.s door, through which he could see boxes and barrels, hams and dried beef, and other commissary stores. The chair matched the flinty sofa down stairs, and the only thing to attract attention in the room was a green cabinet of covered wood that stood beside the bed. While he was looking at it, the old-fas.h.i.+oned clock began striking twelve in a gruff and surly way, as if it did it against its better judgment. The sound woke the old lady up from her brown study--woke her up with a sharp jerk.

"It's twelve o'clock!" she exclaimed shrilly, "and I want my dinner!

Call Midge!"

This was addressed to Captain Cavendish, and in so peremptory a tone that that gallant young officer looked alarmed and disconcerted.

"Call Midge, I tell you! Call her quick!" yelped Lady Leroy in an excited way. "Call Midge, will you!"

"Where is she? Where will I call her?" said the young man, in considerable consternation.

"Open that door, stupid, and call Midge!" cried the old woman, violently excited; "call her quick, I tell you!"

Thus ordered, Captain Cavendish opened the door and began calling loudly on the unknown lady bearing the name of Midge.

Out of the gloom and dismalness below a hoa.r.s.e voice shouted in reply, "I'm a coming;" and Captain Cavendish went back to his seat. The voice was that of a man, and of a man with a shocking bad cold, too; and the step lumbering up stairs was a man's step; but for all that, Midge wasn't a man, but a woman. Such a woman! the Egyptian mummy in the arm-chair was a Parisian belle compared to her. Between three and four feet high, and between four and five feet broad, Midge was just able to waddle under the weight of her own fair person, and no more. A shock of hair, very like a tar-mop, stood, bristling defiance at combs and brushes, up on end, like "quills upon the fretful porcupine." To say she had no forehead, and only two pinholes for eyes, and a little round lump of flesh in lieu of a decent nose, would be doing no sort of justice to the subject; for the face, with its fat, puffy cheeks, was altogether indescribable. The costume of the lady was scant, her dress displaying to the best advantage a pair of ankles some fifteen inches in circ.u.mference, and a pair of powerful arms, bare to the shoulders, were rolled up in a cotton ap.r.o.n. With the airy tread of an elephant inclined to embonpoint, this sylph-like being crossed the hall and stood in the doorway awaiting orders, while Captain Cavendish stared aghast, and backed a few paces with a feeble "By Jove!"

"What do you want, ma'am?" inquired the damsel in the doorway, who might have been anywhere in the vale of years between twenty and fifty.

"Get my dinner! It's after twelve! Don't I always tell you to come and get my dinner when you hear the clock strike twelve?"

"And how do you suppose I can hear that there clock half a mile off, down in that kitchen!" retorted Midge, sharply. "I ain't jest got ears as sharp as lancets, I'd have you know. I'll take the key!"

Mrs. Leroy produced a key from a pocket somewhere about her; and Midge, rather jerking it out of her hands than otherwise, unlocked the pantry, and began busying herself among the forage there. Mrs. Leroy's keen eyes followed every motion as a cat follows its prey, and Captain Cavendish gazed too, as if fascinated, on the fairy form of Miss Midge. In pa.s.sing to and fro, Midge had more than once caught his eye, and at last her feelings got the better of her, and, pausing abruptly before him, with her arms akimbo, burst out, "Look here, sir! I don't know who you are, but if you're a doggertype-man, come to take my picter, I'd jest thank you to be quick about it, and not sit there gaping like----"

"Midge!" called a ringing voice in the doorway. It was Nathalie, her face stern, her voice imperative. "Midge, how dare you speak so?"

"Oh, never mind!" said Captain Cavendish, who, in the main, was a good-natured young officer. "I deserve it, I dare say. I have made an unpardonably long call, I believe. Mrs. Leroy, I wish you good morning."

"Good morning!" said Mrs. Leroy, without looking at him, all her eyes being absorbed in the doings of Midge in the culinary department.

"Natty, you let him out."

Natty did so, and they both laughed when at a safe distance.

"What did you do to Midge?" she inquired, "to tempt her to pour the vials of her wrath on your head, as she was doing when I came in."

"Staring very hard, I am afraid! Where is Barnum, that he does not get hold of that domestic monstrosity?"

"Oh, hus.h.!.+" said Natty. But the warning came too late. Midge, descending the stairs, had heard the speech, and gave the speaker a look so baleful and vindictive, that, had he been troubled with those feminine miseries, nerves, might have haunted him many a day. He smiled at it then, but he remembered that look long after.

"She is acutely sensitive, dull as she seems," said Natty, with a pained look. "I am sorry she heard you."

"I am sincerely sorry for my thoughtless words, then, Miss Marsh, if they pain you."

"She saved Charley's life once," said Natty, "when he was a little fellow. I have always liked Midge since, and I believe she loves me with the faithful and blind fidelity of--but no irreverence--a dog. A slighting word rankles in her memory long."

"I shall fetch her a peace-offering the next time I come, which, by the way," he said, coolly, "is to be this evening, with your permission.

Blake is to be my chaperon on the occasion."

"I regret I shall not see either of you then; but," said Natty, with a funny look, "no doubt Mrs. Leroy will be delighted to entertain you till her bedtime comes, which is precisely nine o'clock."

"Not see us? Are you----"

"I have promised to spend the evening out. When I was with the gardener a few moments ago, Miss Blake came in and asked me to spend the evening with her. Mamma and Miss Rose, the new teacher, are to be there, and I could not refuse."

"Then I shall postpone my call. Oh, there is a summons for you! How impatient your old lady is!"

They shook hands, and parted. Captain Cavendish lit a cigar, and went smoking, meditatingly, down the dreary avenue, and out into the highroad. Standing near the gate was pretty Cherrie, and a refulgent smile greeted him from the rosy lips. He lifted his hat, and pa.s.sed on; for standing in the doorway was the stalwart young fishermen of the beach.

"Two very pretty girls!" he mused, over his Havana; "_belle blonde, et jolie brunette_. It's extremely convenient their living so near together; one journey does for both. I think I understand now what is meant by the old adage of killing two birds with one stone."

CHAPTER VI.

AN EVENING AT MISS BLAKE'S.

The establishment of Miss Joanna Blake was not on a scale of magnificence. Miss Jo's only parlor being about ten feet square, was not too grandly vast at any time, and not exactly adapted for the mirthful throng to disport themselves in. The style of furniture, too, was, some people might think, on a trifle too grand a scale for its dimensions.

When Val, and his fourteen or fifteen friends aforesaid, lit their cigars, tilted back their chairs, elevated the heels of their boots on the piano or table, and all puffed away together, the parlor became rather obscure, and a stranger suddenly entering might have conceived the idea that the house was in flames; and that, perhaps, was the reason the parlor always smelt like a tobacconist's shop. Besides the parlor, Miss Jo had a dining-room and a kitchen, and two bedrooms, in the floor, though, and she did her own work.

In the parlor of No. 16 Great St. Peter's Street, the lamp was lit, the drab moreen curtains let down, and the table set for tea. There was a snowy cloth on the mahogany which hid the marks of the bootheels and the stains of the punch-tumblers, and the china cups and saucers, and the gla.s.s preserve-plates and b.u.t.ter-dish, and spoon-holder, not to speak of the spoons themselves, which were of real silver, and had cost a dollar a piece, and had a big capital "B" engraven thereon, glittered and flashed in the light. There was b.u.t.tered toast, and hot biscuit, and pound-cake, and fruit-cake, and mince-pie, and quince-jelly, and cold chicken, and coffee and tea--all the work of Miss Jo's own fair hands; and Miss Jo herself, rather flushed with the heat, but very imposing and stately to look at in a green poplin dress--real Irish poplin at that--and a worked collar a finger-length deep, presided at the tea-tray, and dispensed the hospitalities of the festive board. Val, sitting opposite, did his part, which consisted chiefly in attempting to pa.s.s the cake-plates, and spilling their contents, of upsetting everything he touched, and looking mildly but reproachfully at the refractory object afterward. Mrs. Marsh was there, placid, and insipid, and faded, and feeble, as usual; and Miss Rose was there, pale and pretty; and Miss Clowrie was there, smiling and soft of voice, and deft of touch, and purring more than ever; and Miss Blair was there, laughing at all the funny things, and rosy as Hebe herself; and Charley Marsh was there, making a martyr of himself in the attempt to be fascinating to three young ladies at once; and everybody had eaten and drank, forced thereto by Miss Blake, until they were, as Charley forcibly put it, "a misery to themselves." So a move was made to adjourn, which just consisted of pus.h.i.+ng their chairs about five inches from the table, not being able to push them any further, and Miss Jo began rattling among the tea-things, which she called clearing them off. Miss Catty, always sweet and obliging, and that sort of a thing, insisted on helping her, and Charley opening the upright, clattered a "Fisher's Hornpipe" in spirited style.

"Come and sing us a song, Laura--that's a good girl," he said, while Val, making an apology, slipped out. "Come and sing 'The Laird o'

c.o.c.kpen.'"

Miss Blair, all smiles, took her seat, and sung not only "The Laird o'

c.o.c.kpen," but a dozen others of the same kidney.

"What do you think of that?" inquired Miss Blair, triumphantly rising up, with a finis.h.i.+ng bang. "Who says I can't sing? Now, Miss Rose, you sing, I know."

"Of course she does," said Charley. "Miss Rose, permit me to lead you to the instrument."

Miss Rose looked as though she were about to excuse herself, but that impulsive Laura Blair ran over and caught her by both hands.