Part 6

Julian was quite conscious of the anything but doubtful taste of this chivalrous rebuke, and felt rather grateful to Iris for breaking in with the artless and time-honoured statement that _she_ always had all the rights she wanted, and men always seemed ready to give up their seats in omnibuses or railway carriages so as to offer them to _her_. She also added that she could not think why this was.

Sir Julian gave her the required explanation of the phenomenon, while Mark turned with a certain aspect of relief to his neighbour, Miss Marchrose, and Mr. Douglas Garrett and Lady Rossiter looked disapprovingly at one another and both began to talk at once with immense firmness and determination.

Julian never knew by what means his wife accomplished her end, but at a later stage of dinner, when Mark and Miss Marchrose had been laughing at one another's jokes for some time, Edna's voice suddenly fell audible on the other side of the table addressing herself to Mr. Garrett: "... but Clarence Isbister is the only son, and a particularly nice boy."

Julian would not look at Miss Marchrose, but Edna's voice had been so distinct that both Mark and she stopped speaking. It was Iris, however, with the praiseworthy instinct of her kind for following up any clue, however remote, that might eventually lead to an only son, who asked:

"Are those the Shropshire Isbisters?"

"A branch of the same family. But I was telling Mr.--er----"

Edna made a slight and insultingly-meant pretence at having forgotten Mr. Garrett's name. Nobody supplied it, unless an exception be made of Iris, who murmured that everyone called him Douglas.

"----About some dear cousins of mine, Isbisters--people who live in Queen's Gate Gardens most of the year."

Lady Rossiter paused, looking straight at Miss Marchrose, who said nothing at all, and looked calmly back at her.

There was complete silence for an instant. Before it had assumed significance, Mark Easter broke it with cheerful trivialities.

Julian wondered whether Miss Marchrose was conscious of challenge.

Her face was inscrutable, but he felt by no means sure that she had not very accurately interpreted Edna's unspoken warning that Mark Easter, if necessary, should yet be told how Clarence Isbister had fared at the hands of his betrothed.

When the not-too-successful dinner had come to an end, and Mark had returned to the drawing-room with the reluctant Julian and a now eloquent Garrett, whose discourse on the convivial proclivities of "we-fellows-about-town" had met with the smallest possible amount of attention from either of his seniors, success seemed within more measurable distance of the evening's entertainment.

Julian was not, indeed, pleased to find the son and daughter of the house sprawlingly occupying the hearthrug, to the exclusion of everyone else from sight or heat of the fire, but he perceived that Ruthie and Ambrose, objectionable in themselves, had at least served to obviate possible mutual friction between the remaining occupants of the room.

Lady Rossiter was maintaining with persevering sweetness a kindly catechism as to the tastes and habits of Master Ambrose Easter, who responded with his newly-acquired monosyllable, reiterated upon a loud, enquiring, unintelligent note. Iris was picturesquely turning over a heap of music just where the lamplight fell on her bright, soft hair, and Miss Marchrose, leaning back in an armchair, hearkened with an unsympathetic expression to Ruthie's noisy and highly-emphasised rendering of an objectionable poem blatantly entitled "I am Grandpa's Little Sweetheart."

"Children, I thought you were in bed long ago," said Mark, eyeing them in a rather dejected fashion.

"Sarah can't put us to bed yet, she's got to wash up," said Ambrose, in a practical way.

"Listen, Daddy!" cried Ruthie:

"So _I_'m the little girlie who always has to _go_ And stand each happy Christmas beneath the mistle_toe_, And Grandpa comes up softly----"

"Ruthie! Stop that."

"But Daddy, it's my piece!"

Mark sank into a chair with a sort of groan.

"The Rector's daughter gives them lessons, and she will teach them these things," he confided to Miss Marchrose, who responded almost more sympathetically than was courteous.

"We've just come to the end."

Accordingly, when Ruthie's final assertion of her hypothetical grandparent's infatuation had died away, and Lady Rossiter had said coldly, "Very nice, Ruthie dear," and Mr. Garrett had muttered something about we votaries of the Muse to Iris, and everybody else had maintained an unenthusiastic silence, Mark Easter bribed, commanded, and cajoled his children into immediate disappearance from the drawing-room.

"Auntie Iris will come and tuck you up, darlings," exclaimed Miss Easter winningly, waiting until they might safely be assumed to be well out of hearing, and merely with the evident intention of captivating Mr. Douglas Garrett.

He immediately joined her as she stood, still fluttering music-leaves.

"Won't you sing?" he enquired tenderly.

But Iris was in the case of the majority of those of her sex known to sing. She had studied for some time, reported ecstatic opinions of her voice, its power and its quality, possessed a large quantity of music, and had never been heard to utter a note.

"The Signora won't hear of my trying my voice yet," said Iris, in the accustomed formula of these carefully sheltered nightingales. "She thinks it may take eight or ten years to develop it, and then I might even think of Grand Opera. It seems too quaint, doesn't it?"

This last tribute to modesty appearing to require no reply, Mr. Garrett turned to Miss Marchrose.

"I fancy from your speaking voice that you can sing," he said kindly. "We musicians are not over-critical, as I'm sure Iris will tell you, and I'm sure it would be delightful to hear you."

Miss Marchrose looked at her host.

"Do," he said.

He and Julian listened to her, while Iris and Mr. Garrett retired to a distant sofa and conversed in undertones, and Lady Rossiter put on one of her kindest expressions.

Miss Marchrose had chosen the only old-fashioned volume from amongst Iris's extremely modern selection, and she sang "Annie Laurie" and "Jock o' Hazeldean." Her voice had the indescribable quality of pathos that is sometimes heard in Irish voices, and was fairly well trained, though it was quite evident that no cherishing Signora had ever had the charge of it. It was not a beautiful voice, but every note within its small compass was exceedingly sweet.

"Thanks--thanks so much," said Mr. Garrett from his sofa. "We Kelts have a very soft corner for the Songs of Hame. Won't you try 'Loch Lomond'?"

But Miss Marchrose said no, and that she was afraid that she had forgotten that part of her audience was Scotch, or she would never have attempted Scotch songs, thus making an end of the pretty illusion that her selection had been out of compliment to Mr. Garrett and his nationality.

"Isn't your voice sufficiently trained to be of a little use to you?" Lady Rossiter asked the singer. "Private engagements are really not so very difficult to get, and I'm sure you'd like adding to the music of the world better than that eternal shorthand."

"I am better qualified to add to the music of the world on a typewriter than on a piano," said Miss Marchrose.

"Go on singing," Julian told her.

This time she sang popular musical comedy songs, rather amusingly, and with the slightest of accompaniments.

Mark roared with laughter, Lady Rossiter substituted a tolerant look for the one of kindness, and Iris and Mr. Garrett exchanged a slight shudder.

"Well done!" said Sir Julian, when she stopped. "But sing 'Annie Laurie' once more."

He listened with peculiar satisfaction while she did as he had asked her.

The dinner-party was broken up by Lady Rossiter, who said to Miss Marchrose as she bade her good night:

"We mustn't keep your cab waiting; that 'King's Head' fly charges abominably as it is. Besides, I don't forget that you have to be at work at nine to-morrow morning. Good night."

She drew on her fur coat, preparatory to walking with Julian the few hundred yards to their own gates.

As they turned away, Mark Easter handed Miss Marchrose into her cab, and they heard him say, "Good night, Annie Laurie."

VII

After that evening, Mark often called Miss Marchrose "Annie Laurie."

Julian frequently wondered what the result might be if he ever did so in the presence of Lady Rossiter.

Lady Rossiter, however, was much engaged with the valedictory meetings at which the members of the nature-class bade nature farewell until the return of warmer weather, and had no immediate leisure to bestow upon the growing friendship between Mark and Miss Marchrose.

Julian made his own observations, and was more than ever convinced that Mark Easter was in no danger from a repetition of the fate which had overtaken Captain Clarence Isbister. That episode, moreover, remained to him utterly incomprehensible. He surmised that the clue to it might be found in that contradiction between the half-mocking, half-defiant directness of Miss Marchrose's eyes and the curiously unconscious pathos of her mouth.

At the villa, Iris Easter for the time being remained installed, reaping an astonishing harvest of press-cuttings, variously indicating surprise, disgust, and admiration at the startling character of "Why, Ben!"

Mr. Douglas Garrett remained in Culmouth and interpreted the press-cuttings to her in his character of "one of we poor literary hacks."

In the first week of December there took place at the College one of the General Committee meetings so abhorred of Sir Julian.

"There are a great, great many things," said Edna thoughtfully, "that I want to speak about at the meeting. I have been so little to the College lately, but it is not often out of my thoughts."

"Bellew is taking the chair," Sir Julian observed, less irrelevantly than might have been supposed.

He was aware, and knew that Edna was aware, that no check or limit would be placed by Alderman Bellew on the College problems that Lady Rossiter might choose to regard as coming within the scope of her influence.

He wondered for the hundredth time whether it would not have been possible to decline the complimentary offer of a position on the general committee of management which had been made to Lady Rossiter as wife of the leading director, and which he knew that she cherished the more from being the only representative of her sex at the meetings.

"By the by," he said suddenly, "the position of Lady Superintendent carries, _ipso facto_, a place on the General Committee. You will have another lady to keep you in countenance, Edna."

"What, poor Miss Marchrose?"

"Miss Marchrose," Julian assented, tacitly refusing the epithet.

Lady Rossiter was silent for a moment and then said quietly, "I'm so glad that I can spare the time to come in to-day. She could never have faced all those men by herself, poor thing, and they would probably have disliked it as much as she would, or more. An unmarried woman is always at a disadvantage."

Julian left undisputed this cardinal article of faith characteristic of the wedded Englishwoman.

In the hall of the College they found Cooper, who said in a congratulatory way, "Sir Julian _and_ Lady Rossiter! You've come for the General Meeting. Let me take your coat, Lady Rossiter, and put it here--just lay it across the chair-back. We're going to have a good meeting, I think--no absentees. Will you wait in Mr. Fuller's rooms, Sir Julian? I'll open the door."

Mr. Fairfax Fuller greeted his chief with an air of relief that turned into a look of smouldering resentment as Lady Rossiter shook hands with him, which she always did, as she said, on principle, either disregarding or not observing the Superintendent's strong tendency to entrench himself behind a writing-table and thrust both hands into his pockets.

She did not, however, shake hands with Miss Marchrose, but nodded to her in a very kindly way and said "Good morning" in a pleasant undertone.

Old Alderman Bellew was talking in the window to Mark Easter.

"How are things going, Mr. Fuller?" Edna enquired with grave interest.

"Going right enough," muttered Fuller, looking at his watch.

"Oh, I'm glad. You know I care so much. What are you putting before the committee to-day?"

Fuller turned his back upon her.

"Miss Marchrose, give Lady Rossiter an agenda."

"Yes, yes," Edna cried, barely glancing at it, "but I don't mean just the headings. For instance, 'Proposed Saturday afternoon classes.' Is there really any chance of it? You know the whole question is very, very near my heart, Mr. Fuller."

"It's for discussion to-day," said Mr. Fuller, bending over his writing-table and intently studying the cover of Pitman's Shorthand Dictionary.

"Oh, yes, but then there's so much that doesn't always come up at the big meetings. _Le dessous des cartes._ In fact," Edna tactfully amended, "the other side of the cards."

"Pocket Shorthand Dictionary, Centenary Edition," was Fuller's explosive reply, as he traced the words on the book before him with a square, tobacco-stained forefinger.

Julian was vividly reminded of the highly unsuccessful tea-party given in her office by Miss Marchrose. He refrained from glancing at her, feeling intimately convinced that the same thought was in her mind at the moment.

"Shall we make a move, Fuller? It's just time."

Fairfax Fuller, with extreme and obvious thankfulness, hastily rose to comply with the suggestion.

Lady Rossiter's traditional seat was at the right-hand side of the chairman. She placed herself there and glanced round. Miss Marchrose entered just behind Sir Julian. She looked not at all shy, but merely rather doubtful.

Edna half-rose, with benevolent shielding in every line of her admirably-hung coat and skirt, but Mark Easter was before her.

"Here, Miss Marchrose, if you will," he said quietly, and making way for her at the table as he spoke. She gave him a quick glance of acknowledgment and took the place that he indicated, between young Cooper and himself at the end of the long table furthest from the chair. Julian was seated at the bottom of the table, facing the Alderman.

"Well, ladies and gentlemen," said the chairman, "I'm happy to tell you that our Commercial and Technical College is doing well, doing very well. I know how much you all have this enterprise at heart, and, indeed, I may say that to the youth of this country, it is an enterprise which cannot--which can, rather, or--er--I should say can_not_ be of anything but inestimable advantage."

The Alderman's opening gambit was new to nobody. Cooper put his pencil behind his ear until such time as the minutes of the conference should claim it from inaction, and only began to fidget when old Bellew made allusion to the increased attendance in the evening classes for French, "so ably presided over by Mr. Cooper."

"The financial statement submitted to the directors by our good friend Mr. Fuller there, is a highly satisfactory one, and the recent audit was conducted to the complete--er--satisfac--to the complete--that is--to the--er--general----"

The Alderman paused again, struggled, was defeated, and ended defiantly, "To the general satisfaction."

"I will ask Mr. Fuller to read to the meeting those figures which will best serve to put the position clearly before the meeting."

Fairfax Fuller, standing at attention, his voice impassive, and his face full of triumph, recited a rapid litany, in which the words "two thousand eight hundred and eleven" predominated.

"Bravo," murmured Mark Easter, thus encouraging the members of the meeting to a general rustle of applause at this indication that something, evidently numbering two thousand eight hundred and eleven parts, had been gained, or saved, or judiciously made use of, for their benefit.

"That, if I may say so, gentlemen," Mr. Fuller impressively remarked, "is a very remarkable result. When I came here as Supervisor, three years ago, matters were not in this state. Far from it. Mr. Mark Easter here can tell you that, so can Sir Julian Rossiter. The College, if I may say so, has pulled itself together since then. I don't wish to claim any credit for myself." ("Liar!" mentally ejaculated Julian.) "But the figures at the end of each year have shown a very marked improvement. I hope next year we may do better still. I may say, that I hope so confidently."

Fuller sat down again, pulling up the legs of his trousers at the knees, and sufficiently intent upon the operation to miss the smile of congratulation that Lady Rossiter was holding in waiting for him.

The old chairman, breathing heavily, leant across the table and addressed Sir Julian Rossiter.

"Now, Sir Julian, you're a younger man than I am, and I'm going to ask you to raise the one or two points we have here on the agenda. I think we want the opinion of the meeting on one or two matters, eh?"

Julian spoke rapidly, and as concisely as possible. Cooper's pencil flew across the pages of his note-book.

"The question has been raised of keeping the College open on Saturday afternoons. There is plenty of evidence that, if we did so, we should get quite a number of town pupils. The early closing of the shops would bring us various shop employees, who are only too anxious to give an hour or two of their spare time to learning. That, I believe, applies especially to the shorthand and typewriting classes. The other subjects, of course, have always been in less demand. The number of students is easily covered by the evening classes on Tuesday and Fridays for such subjects as accountancy, for instance, or French. The question is, therefore, whether it would not be worth while to arrange for a later closing on Saturdays, so as to hold a weekly class for beginners in shorthand and typing."

Sir Julian paused and Fairfax Fuller said eagerly:

"I could engage for our having five pupils, straight off the reel, sir. I actually hold that number of applications."

"Excellent," said the Alderman, from the head of the table.

"Ah!" breathed Lady Rossiter. "One would be so glad and proud, I feel that too, very strongly--to help lay the foundation of knowledge--of that efficiency which is to build up the forces of our Empire. After all, it is the class we are trying to reach that is the very backbone of the country."

The irrelevant diatribes to which Lady Rossiter was almost invariably moved by a General Committee meeting contributed in no small measure to her husband's distaste for them.

He looked straight in front of him and addressed the chairman.

"The whole question, of course, hinges on the staff available. Miss Marchrose and Mr. Fuller are of opinion that it could be arranged, but before approaching any of the teachers, it was thought desirable to get the committee's opinion."

"The question being," ponderously repeated the old Alderman, looking round the table, "the question being, whether or not the College is to open on Saturday afternoons for a special shorthand and typing course."

"I have here a scheme," began Fuller eagerly, but Lady Rossiter's clear voice interrupted him.

"Mr. Chairman, I am only a woman, amongst all you men, but I want you to let me speak."

Edna leant forward in her favourite attitude, her arms folded upon the table, her furs flung back.

"Delighted, Lady Rossiter, delighted to hear your views," growled the Alderman.

Julian, looking down his nose, saw Fuller thrust his bull-neck forward and jab viciously at the blotting-paper in front of him with a blunt pencil.

Mark Easter was pulling at his moustache, leaning well back in his chair, and Miss Marchrose was gazing at Lady Rossiter. Her dark brows were drawn together in a slight frown, that might have indicated puzzledom or disapproval alike.

"It seems to me," said Edna, in the time-honoured opening phrase of the amateur, "it seems to me, that we perhaps none of us quite realise what it would mean to ask any of the staff to give up that precious Saturday. I always feel that it must mean so much to them. We, who can wander out into God's beautiful sunshine at will, can hardly grasp what it must be like to be imprisoned between four walls all the week, without free time, without access to the fresh air, the movement of the world outside. Oh," cried Edna, in a very impassioned manner indeed, "I think if one only puts oneself into the place of those girl and women prisoners, toiling for their bread and butter all the week, it will become impossible to take away the poor little Saturday half-holiday which is all they have! There is no one, I can confidently say, who has our great national cause more at heart than I have, who would do more to bring the light of education into the drab lives of those poor shop creatures, but it seems to me that, as members of the committee, we must give our first thought, our first consideration, to our own--our very own workers. I, personally, have always felt the staff at the College to be my very own."

Julian dared not glance at the representatives of Lady Rossiter's very own, so vividly did his imagination set before him the infuriated lowering of Fuller's dark brow, and the probable line of satire round Miss Marchrose's curving lips.

He had frequently before heard Lady Rossiter moved to a very similar eloquence, but neither custom nor a resolute avoidance of any eye in the room could prevent him from wincing inwardly while her voice rang out.

"It almost seems to me that we forget sometimes--oh, I'm not speaking personally, Heaven knows, I'm weak enough myself--but sometimes I think we forget that it's flesh and blood like our own that we're dealing with. These men and women who work for a living are human beings like ourselves!"

An electric silence followed the announcement.

Edna's head was moved slightly backwards, in the manner of one who has flung down the gauntlet fearlessly. Her eyes travelled slowly round the table.

Suddenly she uttered an impulsive "Ah!"

Julian, taken unawares, glanced up quickly. His wife's eager, ardent gaze had fallen upon Miss Marchrose, motionless in her place.

"My dear!" she exclaimed half under her breath, but entirely audibly, "I forgot you--I forgot you were here. Have I hurt you?"

"Good God!" broke from Fairfax Fuller, and almost at the same instant Mark Easter, with ingenious clumsiness, sent an empty chair to the floor.

Sir Julian set his teeth and stood up.

"I am afraid that we have strayed from the subject under discussion. May I suggest that Mr. Fuller should outline the scheme?"

"Certainly, Sir Julian, by all means--by all means," said the chairman, looking harassed.

Fuller's scheme anticipated the humanitarian doubts raised by Lady Rossiter. The Saturday class should be open from two o'clock to four, and Saturday duty taken weekly in rotation by each one of the three shorthand teachers belonging to the College. The classes of the week should be so rearranged as to enable those members of the staff who had been at work on Saturday afternoon to return to the College at midday only on Monday morning.

"Excellent," said Mark Easter.

"The Lady Superintendent, who will herself kindly undertake one Saturday class in three, is of opinion that the proposition is entirely practicable and would meet with every response from the teachers concerned."

He turned enquiringly to Miss Marchrose.

"Yes, certainly," she said briefly.

"Then if Miss Marchrose will speak to the two lady teachers, Miss Farmer and Miss Sandiloe----"

Mark paused.

"Unless anyone else wishes to raise any further point in that connection," said the chairman, "I may take it that we are all agreed?"