CHAPTER XXII

TWO MORE ENGAGEMENTS

I'm sorry I can't tell you exactly what happened next, because, you see, I don't know myself.

The history of any family is bound to have some of these hiatuses in it.

What Nancy went back and reported to Mr. Curtis I never heard. However, my conscience was simply beaming upon me for having done my little best to make two people happy. The afternoon after that talk with Mr. Curtis it beamed some more.

For the very moment that he could get back from his Class (and he must have galloped!) there came the gallant Curtis to call. He asked quite unabashedly for "Miss Evelyn Verdeley," with the accent on the Evelyn.

I heard him, because I happened to be in the hall when Mary opened the door, so I said, "You'll find my sister in the drawing-room."

He _didn't_, of course; there not being a soul in the drawing-room, as Aunt Victoria was enjoying that convenient siesta of hers upstairs, while Evelyn was knitting in the Lair in the most awful old delaine blouse--the last sort of blouse that any young woman would want to be proposed to in. It really was truly thoughtful of me not to let her, I think. I came into the Lair with a perfectly un-give-away face on and said, "Evelyn, be an angel, will you? Go into the drawing-room and talk pretty to the curate until Auntie has finished her nap. He's come," I said, sorry for the fib, but what else could I tell her? "he's come about some subscription or other."

Evelyn sighed. "Can I go in this blouse?"

"No. I don't think you can," said I, critically. "It is all undone at the back, and there are two loops off, and pins look so untidy. I am sure the curate would be horrified."

This awful thought drove Evelyn upstairs and into a nice clean white silk shirt and her hair done again before she ran down to the drawing-room to see the curate.

Curate was good, wasn't it?

Well, of course I didn't wait in to see what was going to happen when Evelyn discovered her mistake, and found herself face to face with the rejected Curtis youth. I slipped on my belted green blanket-coat and the little leather cap that I had worn at the Junction on Nancy's wedding-day, and I went out for a prolonged prowl by myself all over the charming country scenery, don't you know! of Mud Flats. I do think I was rather an unselfish angel, because you know I couldn't go to tea with Nancy even. I knew that the beloved Harry would be in, and that he would be perfectly furious at having his _tête-à-tête_ spoiled two days running by tiresome sisters-in-law, so I walked doggedly all over the place, and even when it began to rain that drizzling, mizzling, depressing way it does here, I wouldn't go in. I thought the emptier the house is the better for Evelyn and Mr. Curtis to come to their understanding!

Then I thought, yes, presently the house will be quite empty when two out of us three girls are married, and then I shall be left alone with Aunt Victoria.

Well, I suppose that is only to be expected. The youngest ought to be the last to be married, even if she ever gets married at all, which is not always the case. Very likely I shan't get married after all. I shall be the spinster aunt, and just live on at the Moated Grange, spinsing. It isn't very often that out of a large family of girls the whole lot get married and live happily ever after. And who have I had to like me awfully much, since there were no young men who you could count as young men at Mud Flats?

Nobody at all!

Not unless you could count Mr. Lascelles, I thought, walking along quickly to keep myself warm in that chilling drizzle. Of course, he did write charming letters to me when he was the Lonely Subaltern. I was reading them all over to myself last night when I was going to bed, and really they're the kind of letters that any girl might be jolly pleased to get!

It's true I didn't know who was writing to me, but he knew who it was that he was writing to when he said all these nice things to me.

Then there was all that that Nancy told me before she was married about the other men, and how they all said that Frank Lascelles was frantically attracted by the youngest of the girls at his billet.

Of course it's all rubbish, that.

Still ... I do wonder what first put the idea into their heads?

(Later.)

Now, would you have believed it? Could you have imagined that any one would have been so unkind and shown such black ingratitude as my sister Evelyn?

When I got in to the Moated Grange, very late and very cold, and absolutely dying for my tea, which I had gone without all for the sake of that girl, what do you think had happened? Why, I didn't even see her and the Curtis youth, who is just as ungrateful as she is. They were in the Lair; still in the Lair, if you please, though he had arrived at three, and you surely might have thought that they had got through all they wanted to say to each other by a quarter to six!!

But, oh no! Apparently not!

It was Aunt Victoria who met me and beckoned me into the drawing-room with the most extraordinary mixture of expressions on her face. "Rattle, I have some wonderful news for you," she said. "Evelyn and Mr. Curtis have just told me that they care for each other and wish to be engaged to be married."

"Good heavens! Auntie," I said, with my best surprised face on. "Are you going to let them?"

"Let them!" said Aunt Victoria in a resigned tone. "I have given up thinking about letting or not letting any of you girls do anything you want; after Nancy and Harry I assure you nothing will surprise me--nothing!"

Well, I thought that was good news in case I ever wish to get engaged to anybody. I mean, if there were anybody to get engaged to!

Mr. Curtis stayed on and on and on, missing an appointment which he had with the adjutant at the "Pearl and Oyster," and keeping Evelyn as well as us from having a speck of anything to eat; but such is love! It seems to be quite as good as any concentrated food as far as going without your meals is concerned, but it does take up a lot of time!

At last! At long last! we heard the front door bang and Mr. Curtis's heavy boots going scrunch, scrunch down the gravel.

And then at last Evelyn condescended to come in.

She was very pink and very untidy haired and looked so happy. She was absolutely a different girl from when I had seen her last.

I was so awfully bucked! I went up to her at once to kiss her. I couldn't help noticing the careful way in which she gave me the edge of her cheek to do it on! You could have seen from that that she was an engaged girl! As soon as I could I got her alone and said: "Now, Evelyn, do tell me. I have been simply dying to know all about it!"

Evelyn smiled kindly at me and said, in a far-away sort of voice, "Oh, but I thought you knew. It is quite all right. Edwin and I are engaged to be married, and I am the happiest girl in the world!"

"Yes, but I don't mean that," I said a little impatiently. "Don't keep the conversation so general; I want to know all about it properly. Every detail. What he said and what you said, and what happened next, and all that."

"That," said Evelyn decidedly, "you will never hear!"

"What!" I exclaimed, simply appalled, as you can imagine, by this black display of sisterly ingratitude. "Do you mean you are not going to?"

"I am certainly not going to discuss it with my youngest sister," said Evelyn, just as if her youngest sister hadn't been responsible for all her happiness! "Some things are too sacred to be talked about." Well! Comment is superfluous; so I'll simply leave Evelyn's behaviour at that.

She's been engaged a week now....

And the more it goes on the more one feels that this event has touched the summit of all earthly excitements and that nothing further will ever happen!

Now something has happened. This afternoon something happened by the second post. A letter came for Aunt Victoria in a rather determined handwriting that I didn't know.

Mary took it in to her where she was playing patience as usual in the drawing-room.

In a short time she cried: "Oh, Rattle, my dear, it never rains but it pours; here is news of your young friend, Mr. Lascelles."

"Oh, three cheers!" I said, feeling really pleased, for it had seemed ages and ages since we had heard anything about him.

Also, I was only just beginning to realise how frightfully I missed him. You see, there really is nobody young about the place for me to talk to. Nancy married, and Evelyn worse, namely, engaged! I should be truly thankful to have had Mr. Lascelles's merry prattle and his footstep on the stair, if only to cheer me up for the loss of my sister.

I said: "Is he well enough to come back to his billet?"

"No, my dear, apparently not," said Auntie, still holding on to Mr. Lascelles's letter. "But it is suggested that he is well enough to have visitors, and that some of us might be allowed to go over to the Junction and see him.... Now, I'd go myself with pleasure, poor dear little Mr. Lascelles! But you know what rheumatism it gives me to travel in that horrid little draughty train in this weather. And Evelyn has arranged to meet Mr. Curtis' sister, who is coming down. So I think, Rattle, that you will have to go over and make our apologies."

I could have skipped for joy!

You see, I was really longing to talk to somebody about the Evelyn-Curtis affair. I knew Mr. Lascelles would be simply thrilled to hear the details of it, considering he was the person who had first introduced the noble-minded Edwin to the bosom of our family! And you know how cheering it is to have an interesting story to tell to any one who you guess will drink in every syllable with gusto!

Hence my glee. But I didn't want Aunt Victoria to change her mind about my going, so I said quite casually, "Oh, I'll go if you like. I'll do my best to cheer up the wounded."

Aunt Victoria said, contemplating her cards on the green table, "Yes, I daresay he will be quite glad to see one of us again. Though I don't suppose he will need any 'cheering up' at present. At least, not judging by Mr. Curtis and Harry."

"Judging by Mr. Curtis and Harry?" I repeated. "How do you mean, Auntie?"

Aunt Victoria moved the Queen of Hearts and then replied, "Well, you see they are engaged too."

"Engaged too?" I echoed, thinking I couldn't have heard what she'd said. "Engaged _too_? You can't mean that Mr. Lascelles is engaged?"

"That won't do," said Auntie, slipping the Queen down again. "What did you say, Rattle? Oh, yes; Mr. Lascelles. Why shouldn't he be engaged?"

"Why--but--but---- Yes, why shouldn't he?" I said, with a most peculiar mixy sort of feeling in my chest; pure surprise, you know, and unexpectedness. "Of course; everybody is, nearly. It--it--it seems to be in the air. But, Auntie, _is_ he?"

"So it seems," said Auntie, glancing at his letter before she slipped it back into her knitting bag. "I hadn't heard anything about it before, had any of you girls?"

"No, I'm sure we hadn't," I said, rather dismally. For, you see, this meant I shouldn't have even a friend left to myself! Everybody under sixty engaged--except me! And who on earth was this other girl--I mean this girl who had got engaged to the Lonely Subaltern? He must have been engaged all the time he was here, I supposed.

Well! He might have told us before! Pretending to be such friends, and keeping a thing like that from us all the time! No wonder I felt sort of sore and hurt.

I said, "Auntie, has he told you her name?"

"Oh, yes," said Aunt Victoria blandly. Then she exclaimed, "_Ah!_" in great delight, for the patience had "come out" unexpectedly. She gloated over this for what seemed like ten minutes before she condescended to go back to the subject of Mr. Lascelles's fiancée.

"Quite a surprise to me, though I am making up my mind never to be surprised at any engagement," said Aunt Victoria, gathering up her cards again. "I see now why she was so anxious to nurse him herself----"

"What?" I almost shrieked. "Is it that awful domineering, self-satisfied, blue-and-white nurse from the Nursing Home who was here?"

"No. Oh, no," said Aunt Victoria. "It's not the nurse, it's the matron of the Nursing Home herself."

"Miss Gates?" I ejaculated in a kind of mixture of a whisper and a scream. "D'you mean Mr. Lascelles is engaged to be married to that old Miss Gates?"

"So it seems, my dear," said Aunt Victoria, starting another patience. "But you couldn't possibly call her 'old'!"

_Couldn't_ I?

I could call her lots more things than that! That woman engaged to Mr. Lascelles?

Why, he's twenty-four, and she must be at _least_ ten years older than that! _Years_ past any thought of engagements, and loves, and follies of that sort!

Why--why----!

I hope she knows what they call the behaviour of an elderly woman who goes and commandeers the affections of a mere boy? Cradle-snatching!

Robbing the nursery!

Good gracious!

So that's what she meant by calling him "Frankie" and pretending to be a sister to him!

That's why she motored down here and swept him off to her den like the spider and the fly!

She was sick and tired of being an old maid, I suppose, and she took him to be a comfort to her declining years!

As for him---- Well, what he can see in a withered frump of thirty-four----

Never mind. It's nothing to me. As far as I'm concerned he can marry his grandmother if he likes--I mean, anybody else's grandmother.

The only annoying part about it to me is that you can't possibly chatter away to an engaged man or woman as you can to a bachelor, because you know perfectly well that it will all be passed on to whoever they're engaged to. This sad phenomenon in natural history has cut off a lot of my conversations with Nancy, also with Evelyn. Now, of course, I shan't be able to say another word to Mr. Lascelles ever.

So that's taken most of the interest out of my trip to the Nursing Home at the Junction to-morrow.

I have a good mind not to go.

Horrible woman! I shan't go.