CHAPTER V

FIRESIDE TALKS

IT was not long before Anstice visited Miss Maybrick again, and before she came away, she had been entreated to go to the elder sister and pave the way for a reconciliation between them. At the same time Anstice felt that there was no love in Carrie's heart for her sister, no sorrow for her share of wrong in the past, it was only in hopes of being allowed to stay on in her old home that made her wish for peace.

Justin went up for a few days to town, and Anstice took that opportunity for seeing the elder sister. She was struck, as she entered Borrows Holt, as the farm was called, at the great contrast between the two houses. Here was prosperity and comfort facing you whichever way you looked. Well-kept barns and storehouses, beautiful pastureland, a very pretty garden surrounding the house, and, inside, charmingly furnished rooms.

Miss Harriet Maybrick was the elder of the two sisters, but she did not look it. She was a tall, graceful woman, and except for very fierce dark eyes and bushy eyebrows, and a certain hard compression of her lips, would have been a very handsome woman.

It was an awkward moment when Anstice introduced herself.

"You used to know my husband, and I have been seeing something of your sister at Harscale Hall. It is she who has implored me to come and see you. I hope you will not think me impertinent for doing so."

"I am very pleased to meet Justin Holme's wife," said Miss Maybrick graciously. "I ought, I know, to have called upon you, but I am a busy woman, and gave up society a long while ago. I have been farming my own land. I have heard about you from Mrs. Wykeham. She comes over to see me sometimes."

Her pleasantness made it difficult for Anstice to proceed. They talked about farming and about the lake and Fells, and she asked after Justin's children.

"Mrs. Wykeham has told me that they were running wild. I expect that you have had trouble with them."

"Wonderfully little," said Anstice. "They were mismanaged, and were allowed to get the upper hand of their governesses. I am very fond of them and they know it, but I never mean to spoil them."

Then she suddenly took the plunge.

"Miss Maybrick, at the risk of being thought officious, I come to plead your sister's cause. Have you seen her lately? She is ill and feeble, and very, very miserable. She wants the past forgiven and forgotten. Can you in any way meet her?"

Miss Maybrick's lips were compressed, and her eyes like steel as she replied:

"My sister has run through her fortune and has only herself to thank for the present trouble. She never ceased working on my father's feelings till she got him to make his will in her favour. She boasted of this to me. When she had driven me out of my home, she neglected the property, and let it all tumble into decay and ruin. She became a gambler, and gambled away all that she possessed. For years I have worked and saved and denied myself, so that I should be able to buy back my old home. And now when I have done it, when she knows she can afford to live there no longer, she works upon the pity of strangers and sends them round to me to intercede on her behalf. What does she expect, I should like to know? We are told that, as we sow, so shall we reap. Her harvest has come."

"Yes," said Anstice sadly; "I know that all you say is true, she has been her own worst enemy. It is right and fair that you should take possession of your old home now. But is it necessary to turn her out? Could you not let her have a couple of rooms in one wing?"

A short, bitter laugh escaped Miss Maybrick's lips.

"Did she apportion any rooms for my use after our father's death? He was hardly cold in his grave before she strode into my room and told me that there could be no two mistresses of Harscale Hall. I was out of the house with all my belongings within a fortnight."

"But you had money. She has none. For the sake of your name, and your own high principles of honour and pride, you cannot turn her out of her home as a beggar."

"I think this conversation is waste of time. I never change my mind. If the King himself on his bended knees came and pleaded for her, my answer would be the same. She has made her own bed, let her lie in it."

Anstice rose. It had been a visit made much against her will and liking. And yet, as she shook hands with Miss Maybrick, she could not help saying in her tender way:

"We have all been treated so much better than we deserve. And mercy is such a much grander force than power, that even now I dare to hope that you will find a way out. A way of preserving your dignity of justice, together with a great compassionate love towards the one who has wronged you. May I thank you for listening to me and not being offended at my interference in such a delicate and private family matter?"

Miss Maybrick was speechless.

Anstice returned home feeling downcast at her failure to move or touch the stern North-country gentlewoman.

When her husband came back from town she told him of her visit.

"Would you object very much if I asked poor Miss Carrie to come and stay with us till she could make her own plans? She cannot be turned out of doors. It is cruel and inhuman of her sister to think of doing it."

"No," said Justin sharply, "I am not going to have her here. You have quite enough to do with running the house and looking after the children, without having an invalid on your hands. Miss Harriet will find lodgings for her somewhere; there are several big farms in that neighbourhood where they would take her in. Don't think you have to be benefactor to the whole world!"

It was a day or two after this that, coming home from hunting, Justin paused on his way upstairs outside the drawing-room door.

Anstice was at the piano singing, in her mellow contralto, little songs to the children, and they were joining in the chorus.

He opened the door and stood there listening.

"I want to stay little," said John Clifford Knight; "The grown-ups are dull, and so old. They never can run, they're too proper to fight; They only look at us, and scold."

Chorus: "But I'll sing when I'm little, and I'll sing when I'm big, And my song will be Ha! Ha!! Ha!!!"

"They like sitting still, they can't climb a high wall, They never play games and pretend, The fairies and bogies they can't see at all, Their money on sweets they'll not spend."

Chorus: "But I'll sing," etc.

"I want to be bigger," said Peter McDuff, "For grown-ups can do as they will; They eat what they like and have more than enough Without being seedy and ill."

Chorus: "But I'll sing," etc.

"They always have money; they don't have to go Off to bed every night before eight. Whatever they want, there is never a 'No,' And nobody scolds when they're late."

Chorus: "But I'll sing," etc.

The children were rather astonished when a rich bass voice joined in the chorus of the last verse.

Anstice looked over her shoulder and smiled.

And then, just as he was, he dropped into a chair.

"Sing another," he said.

So they sang another one, and then another, and then he moved over to the fire, and Ruffie insisted upon being lifted on his knees.

"You sing very nice, Dad," he said, putting his tiny hand up and holding his father's chin in a way that he had when he wanted to be emphatic. "I think you'll have to come and sing with us always."

"Oh, Dad will soon be going away again," sang out Georgie; "he's been home quite a long time now."

"I'm not going just yet," said Justin.

Then he added, with a slight twinkle in his eyes as he looked over at Anstice: "But when I do, I'm thinking of taking someone with me."

"Not Steppie!" cried out both the little girls. "You shan't have Steppie."

"No, you won't have her, we couldn't do without her," echoed Ruffie.

"But if I told her to come, she would have to do so," said Justin. "And I expect she would like to come."

Anstice looked across at him. Their eyes met. Justin's gravely imperturbable, Anstice's puzzled and slightly perplexed.

"Will you come with me, Anstice?"

His tone was not mocking, and yet beneath his steady gaze, Anstice felt that he was amusing himself at her expense.

"I always keep my promises," she said gently but firmly. "Which is my rightful place by our agreement? And who wants me most? The little ones or you?"

"We do, Steppie, we do," cried the little girls.

"Well, if you won't come out just yet, I must wait for you," said Justin, smiling enigmatically.

And then he got up, and put Ruffie into his wheeled chair with very tender hands.

"I haven't changed," he said; "I must go and have a bath. No hunting to-morrow. If fine, Ruffie, I'll take you on your pony up the Fells to-morrow morning. We'll let the lessons go hang."

Some time later, when the children were in bed, Anstice came to her husband.

"You'll have to go and comfort poor Ruffie. He has got the idea that I am going to run off with you. You shouldn't joke with them so. They don't understand it."

"You run off with me? No, it will be the other way about, but I will go to him."

Ruffie's pillow was damp with tears.

"Dad, tell me on your gentleman's honour you won't take Steppie off! It's bad enough you going, but she belongs to us much more than to you! And when she's away, there's nobody to keep us merry and—comf'able. We couldn't live without her now, we really couldn't. You don't want her as we do."

"I don't know about that, my boy," said Justin, putting his hand on the golden curls. "Your Dad is undergoing a kind of upheaval, turning out of his heart some old rotten roots, and getting into a very topsy-turvy state of mind. I don't know that your song is quite true to life. How does it go?"

"Whatever they want, there is never a 'No.'"

"I've had a good many 'no's' in my life, and am likely to get some more, I foresee."

"We say no, no, no, to Steppie leaving us," said Ruffie with a little sob, "and I'm so 'fraid you'll do it of a sudden, like you go from us gen'ally. We shall wake up one day and find Steppie gone. I'm so 'fraid of it, I can't sleep."

"You're a little duffer," said his father, stooping to kiss him. "Steppie, as you call her, doesn't want to come with me. She would hate it, she would hate leaving you. Wild horses wouldn't drag her."

"But if you want her—"

"If I want her, I shall have to do without her. And if we all want her, the best plan will be for me to stay at home, then we can all have each other. Will that please you?"

"Oh yes, that's a very good plan, the best you could make."

Ruffie gave a sigh of relief, and turned over on his pillow. Five minutes after, he was fast asleep.

After dinner that evening, Justin came into the drawing-room. As a rule he was in his smoking-room for most of the evening.

If Anstice was surprised, she did not show it.

He took the big easy chair by the fire.

"Now," he said, "I want some music. May I have it? I don't see why the children should be your only audience. You sing to them, I should like you to sing to me."

Perhaps his tone was more peremptory than he knew. Anstice looked at him with heightened colour in her cheeks.

"I don't think that was mentioned in our bond," she said in her quietest tone.

He looked quite startled, then smiled at her. Justin's smiles were rare.

Anstice felt ashamed of herself.

"Then I will plead like Ruffie. Please! Please! Please!"

Without a word Anstice seated herself at the piano. She sang first a lullaby, and as she sang Justin leant his head back against the cushion in his chair and closed his eyes.

Then she sang an old English ballad, and she finished with "Robin Adair."

"That's because we're close to Scotland here," she said, laughing, as she left the piano. "I don't sing in public, so you must consider yourself favoured. It is the old simple ballads I sing to the children. The modern young people would be disgusted, but they are not critical yet."

"Thank you. I am not modern, and I like ballads better than the French and Italian operatic music which one hears so much nowadays. Now will you sit down? I want to talk to you. The winter is going. Don't you think that a horse would take you over the Fells better than your two legs? I don't like your wandering about alone. You do ride?"

"Yes, I do," said Anstice. "I won't pretend that I shouldn't like a steed, for I should love to have one, but you mustn't make me give up my walking. It is good for one's health; and to wander out on the short turf up amongst the Fells and mountains is a continual delight to me. You must remember I have the car now. If you could afford it, two rough mountain ponies for the little girls would give them tremendous pleasure. They ride the old pony when they get the chance, but his back is too broad for them, and now Ruffie uses him, they have to be content with walking."

"I'll see what I can do in that way, but if they ride, they'll be getting into mischief."

"I don't think so. It will keep them out of mischief. I wish you were a little fonder of your small daughters."

He contracted his brows.

"They're too like their mother," he said shortly.

"That isn't their fault, poor mites! They're conscious of your indifference to them, which is bad for you, and bad for them. I don't want to ask you about the past, but doesn't time make us more tender with the erring? If you could have gentler thoughts—"

He interrupted her.

"Do you think I can ever forget," he said in a tone of concentrated bitterness, "that it is owing to her failure as wife and mother that my only son is as he is. He might have been a strong, sturdy youngster, in full health and strength of body, instead of which he is a suffering, mutilated cripple. Whilst I have him before my eyes, do you think I can ever have gentle thoughts of his mother?"

Anstice had never realized how much he felt his boy's deformity. She said very gently:

"Poor darling Ruffie, it seems a sorry thing that his beautiful little presence should be the means of keeping up hatred and bitterness in your heart. Whatever his body may be, God in His mercy has given him great gifts of soul. Not only his charming, loving little personality which makes us all adore him, but in mental capacity and artistic genius. I believe he will do wonders with his pencil and paints if he lives to grow up. You have great reason to be proud of your boy. And his sweetness and cheery patience set us all an example of endurance and fortitude."

Justin did not speak. He was gazing into the fire before him. Then he looked across at his wife.

She was in a russet brown cloth tea-gown, with a little soft lace about her throat, and she was a picture of dainty sweetness and grace.

"Perhaps," he said slowly as his gaze rested on her, "you will in time get me to believe again in woman's sincerity. I have had a bitter disillusion."

"Yes, I can believe you have, but you are sufficiently a man of the world to know that there is every variety of woman, as well as every variety of man. If you happened to make a bad choice, that is your misfortune. Perhaps you were as little suited to her as she was to you. Forgive me for touching upon the subject, but sometimes it is better to talk a matter out, than let it fester inside into an unwholesome sore."

"I dare say I was an exacting and intolerant husband," said Justin gloomily. "She hated this place, and I made her live here. Her friends were not mine, and I would not have some of them inside the house. We were like two snarling dogs on the same chain! Thank God, we only had four years of it, but it was hell for both of us for that time, and then, as you know, she took the law into her own hands and made a bolt."

"Well," said Anstice slowly, "she left you three sweet children. For their sakes, forgive their mother and realize that you may have been hard and unyielding. We are so faulty ourselves, that we ought to bear with others' failings, but that seems an impossibility, does it not?"

Little more was said between them, but Justin was softened by the talk, and Anstice noted that from that time he was less curt with his little girls.