The Freelands Part 12

When Kirsteen and Sheila came to relieve him of that vigil he went down-stairs. There in the kitchen Biddy was was.h.i.+ng up, and Susie and Billy putting on their boots for school. They stopped to gaze at Tod feeling in his pockets, for they knew that things sometimes happened after that. To-day there came out two carrots, some lumps of sugar, some cord, a bill, a pruning knife, a bit of wax, a bit of chalk, three flints, a pouch of tobacco, two pipes, a match-box with a single match in it, a six-pence, a necktie, a stick of chocolate, a tomato, a handkerchief, a dead bee, an old razor, a bit of gauze, some tow, a stick of caustic, a reel of cotton, a needle, no thimble, two dock leaves, and some sheets of yellowish paper. He separated from the rest the sixpence, the dead bee, and what was edible. And in delighted silence the three little Trysts gazed, till Biddy with the tip of one wet finger touched the bee.

"Not good to eat, Biddy."

At those words, one after the other, cautiously, the three little Trysts smiled. Finding that Tod smiled too, they broadened, and Billy burst into chuckles. Then, cl.u.s.tering in the doorway, grasping the edibles and the sixpence, and consulting with each other, they looked long after his big figure pa.s.sing down the road.

CHAPTER XII

Still later, that same morning, Derek and Sheila moved slowly up the Mallorings' well-swept drive. Their lips were set, as though they had spoken the last word before battle, and an old c.o.c.k pheasant, running into the bushes close by, rose with a whir and skimmed out toward his covert, scared, perhaps, by something uncompromising in the footsteps of those two.

Only when actually under the shelter of the porch, which some folk thought enhanced the old Greek-temple effect of the Mallorings' house, Derek broke through that taciturnity:

"What if they won't?"

"Wait and see; and don't lose your head, Derek." The man who stood there when the door opened was tall, grave, wore his hair in powder, and waited without speech.

"Will you ask Sir Gerald and Lady Malloring if Miss Freeland and Mr.

Derek Freeland could see them, please; and will you say the matter is urgent?"

The man bowed, left them, and soon came back.

"My lady will see you, miss; Sir Gerald is not in. This way."

Past the statuary, flowers, and antlers of the hall, they traversed a long, cool corridor, and through a white door entered a white room, not very large, and very pretty. Two children got up as they came in and flapped out past them like young partridges, and Lady Malloring rose from her writing-table and came forward, holding out her hand. The two young Freelands took it gravely. For all their hostility they could not withstand the feeling that she would think them terrible young prigs if they simply bowed. And they looked steadily at one with whom they had never before been at quite such close quarters. Lady Malloring, who had originally been the Honorable Mildred Killory, a daughter of Viscount Silport, was tall, slender, and not very striking, with very fair hair going rather gray; her expression in repose was pleasant, a little anxious; only by her eyes was the suspicion awakened that she was a woman of some character. They had that peculiar look of belonging to two worlds, so often to be met with in English eyes, a look of self-denying aspiration, tinctured with the suggestion that denial might not be confined to self.

In a quite friendly voice she said:

"Can I do anything for you?" And while she waited for an answer her glance travelled from face to face of the two young people, with a certain curiosity. After a silence of several seconds, Sheila answered:

"Not for us, thank you; for others, you can."

Lady Malloring's eyebrows rose a little, as if there seemed to her something rather unjust in those words--'for others.'

"Yes?" she said.

Sheila, whose hands were clenched, and whose face had been fiery red, grew suddenly almost white.

"Lady Malloring, will you please let the Gaunts stay in their cottage and Tryst's wife's sister come to live with the children and him?"

Lady Malloring raised one hand; the motion, quite involuntary, ended at the tiny cross on her breast. She said quietly:

"I'm afraid you don't understand."

"Yes," said Sheila, still very pale, "we understand quite well. We understand that you are acting in what you believe to be the interests of morality. All the same, won't you? Do!"

"I'm very sorry, but I can't."

"May we ask why?"

Lady Malloring started, and transferred her glance to Derek.

"I don't know," she said with a smile, "that I am obliged to account for my actions to you two young people. Besides, you must know why, quite well."

Sheila put out her hand.

"Wilmet Gaunt will go to the bad if you turn them out."

"I am afraid I think she has gone to the bad already, and I do not mean her to take others there with her. I am sorry for poor Tryst, and I wish he could find some nice woman to marry; but what he proposes is impossible."

The blood had flared up again in Sheila's cheeks; she was as red as the comb of a turkey-c.o.c.k.

"Why shouldn't he marry his wife's sister? It's legal, now, and you've no right to stop it."

Lady Malloring bit her lips; she looked straight and hard at Sheila.

"I do not stop it; I have no means of stopping it. Only, he cannot do it and live in one of our cottages. I don't think we need discuss this further."

"I beg your pardon--"

The words had come from Derek. Lady Malloring paused in her walk toward the bell. With his peculiar thin-lipped smile the boy went on:

"We imagined you would say no; we really came because we thought it fair to warn you that there may be trouble."

Lady Malloring smiled.

"This is a private matter between us and our tenants, and we should be so glad if you could manage not to interfere."

Derek bowed, and put his hand within his sister's arm. But Sheila did not move; she was trembling with anger.

"Who are you," she suddenly burst out, "to dispose of the poor, body and soul? Who are you, to dictate their private lives? If they pay their rent, that should be enough for you."

Lady Malloring moved swiftly again toward the bell. She paused with her hand on it, and said:

"I am sorry for you two; you have been miserably brought up!"

There was a silence; then Derek said quietly:

"Thank you; we shall remember that insult to our people. Don't ring, please; we're going."

In a silence if anything more profound than that of their approach, the two young people retired down the drive. They had not yet learned--most difficult of lessons--how to believe that people could in their bones differ from them. It had always seemed to them that if only they had a chance of putting directly what they thought, the other side must at heart agree, and only go on saying they didn't out of mere self-interest. They came away, therefore, from this encounter with the enemy a little dazed by the discovery that Lady Malloring in her bones believed that she was right. It confused them, and heated the fires of their anger.

They had shaken off all private dust before Sheila spoke.

"They're all like that--can't see or feel--simply certain they're superior! It makes--it makes me hate them! It's terrible, ghastly."

And while she stammered out those little stabs of speech, tears of rage rolled down her cheeks.

Derek put his arm round her waist.