CHAPTER XI

INNUENDOS

MISS COXEN came to a pause, and Jessie felt the prospect unsatisfactory. Her visions of great success and crowded time for Mildred had waxed dim.

She was, however, wise enough to be thankful for small things, and her neatly expressed thanks went far towards disarming the sisters of their spirit of opposition to the scheme. Again they promised to "think it over," each enforcing the other's words with repetitions, and Jessie had to say, "Thank you so much," at least six times in acknowledgment.

After all this, the temptation to recur to Jack Groates became irresistible. Miss Coxen looked across the road, opening and shutting her eyes with meaning, and Miss Sophy gave vent to little sympathetic gasps.

"And how is that poor young fellow getting on?" asked Miss Coxen in benignant tones.

Jessie's mother-wit came quickly to her aid.

"What poor fellow?" she inquired, with lifted eyebrows, and with scarcely so much as a blush. Necessity lent her self-control.

"What poor fellow? O now, Jessie, Jessie, as if you didn't know! The idea of pretending!" ejaculated Miss Sophy, shaking a pair of scissors at her. "And such friends as you and he are too!"

"He hasn't been here long enough," Jessie replied, with a coolness which astonished herself, though, indeed, her cheeks were no longer cool. "I like him, of course, but not so much as the old Vicar yet."

"Dear me! She means the Vicar, sister," in an audible aside.

"But we mean poor young Jack Groates, Jessie. How is he getting on?" asked the older sister with an indulgent smile.

"O well enough, I dare say," responded Jessie indifferently. "I'm too busy to go and ask; but they say he'll be walking soon."

"Brave young fellow."

"Was he? Other people were brave too. Aunt Barbara said he had no business to go at all."

"My dear Jessie!" ejaculated one sister.

And "Jessie, my dear!" echoed the other.

"That was what aunt Barbara said. I didn't say it. She said it wasn't Jack's business. Of course I don't know. They might all have been drowned, of course."

"Ah, it is easy to speak so now, Jessie, when the young fellow is all right in his own room. If he had been drowned, I know very well who would have broken her poor little heart."

"You don't know!" retorted Jessie indignantly, unable any longer to keep up a show of indifference. "I can guess what you mean, I suppose, and it is all nonsense. Of course I was sorry; anybody would be sorry to know of people being drowned—people they knew! But I think it is very unkind to make so much out of nothing, and to twit people with it afterwards. I'm very fond of Mrs. Groates, and it seemed so dreadful to think of what she would have to bear. And then to be accused—" Jessie broke down, nearly in tears.

"Yes, yes, my dear; of course that is all clear and right," pursued Miss Sophy, not in the least convinced, and smiling away in a manner which exasperated Jessie. "Of course it's quite proper and sensible to talk like that, and every one knows what it is worth. We'll all wait and see. And some day, when Jack Groates speaks out,—"

"Speaks out what?" cried Jessie angrily.

"Really, Jessie, I wouldn't give way to temper; I wouldn't really," expostulated Miss Coxen. "It is such a pity. You ought to be able to take kindly a little interest in your affairs from such old friends—such very old friends as we are. We are only pleased for your sake, because we know you so well, and because we are fond of you."

"Pleased about what?" asked Jessie tartly.

Miss Coxen hesitated; Miss Sophy did not hesitate. "About you and Jack Groates," she said, beaming.

"What about me and Jack Groates?"

Jessie was too wrathful now to remember her manners.

"My dear, of course you know what I mean."

"I don't; or if I do, nobody has any business to say such things. That's nobody's business except my own," declared Jessie. "Jack has never asked me to marry him; and if he did—"

Jessie came to a pause. Indignation had carried her on farther than she had meant to go. She found suddenly whither her words were tending.

"And if he did?" echoed Miss Sophy.

"I wouldn't have him, of course."

"Now, Jessie!"

"Why should I? You don't suppose I'm going to have the first man that wants me, if I don't care for him! Not I!" cried Jessie.

"You wouldn't marry that fine young fellow if he wanted to have you, Jessie?"

Jessie flung her head back, and stood up.

"Marry Jack Groates! Thank you! Not I!"

The sisters stared each at the other, aghast. "Aunt Barbara will want me. I've got to go home now."

Good-byes were brief, and Jessie was speedily hastening homeward. But she did not at once report herself to Miss Perkins, or go to Mildred. She ran upstairs to her own little room, shut the door, and stood still to think.

"How they do meddle, and how I do hate meddling! Was I wrong to say that? But what else could I say? And now they will go and repeat what I have said all over the place. And Jack will hear it too. Well, let him! If he really cares for me, he ought to understand; and if he doesn't, it's the best thing he can hear. Will he mind? Poor Jack! O I wish, I wish, people wouldn't interfere in what doesn't concern them. What does it signify to Miss Sophy whether I like Jack or don't like him? It's our business, not hers.

"Aunt Barbara declared it was no business of Jack's to go and save the sailors, and I think that was his business. It was everybody's business. But I'm sure this isn't everybody's business. I do detest the way Miss Sophy goes on. And if Jack hears what I said! I wish I hadn't said so much! And yet if I hadn't, Miss Sophy would have gone talking everywhere, as if I wanted to marry Jack. And I don't—unless he wants it! Of course I don't. But if Jack hears, what will he think?"

Jessie's fears were not without foundation. So interesting a conversation could not possibly be kept by the sisters for their own private delectation, and it was whispered in detail to one acquaintance after another, always under injunctions to secrecy.

Such injunctions are not worth much, since each acquaintance was pretty sure to repeat the whisper to somebody else. In this manner the tale travelled in a very short time, not exactly across the road, but round by longer routes, till it arrived inside Groates' store. Had Jack's mother heard it, she would never have said a word to Jack; but unhappily Mimy was the recipient, and Mimy always told everything to Jack. She never thought of making this an exception. Jack listened with grieved eyes.

"Jessie said she wouldn't have me! Mimy, are you sure it isn't a mistake? What could have made her speak so? I've never told her yet in plain words that I do want her; but she must have seen. I thought she understood, and I thought she cared for me. I did really think it."

"I'm sure I did too, Jack. Jessie must be a heartless sort of girl to talk in such a way—just now when you are ill, too."

"We don't know what made her talk so. You're quite sure she really did say it?"

"Miss Sophy is telling everybody that she did. I don't see why Miss Sophy should make up such a story for nothing. And Jessie hasn't been here nearly so often the last few weeks, Jack. Mother and I could not think why. Perhaps she has changed somehow."

"I couldn't have thought it of her," muttered Jack. He hid his face, and actually groaned aloud. "I thought there wasn't another girl in the world like Jessie." Then he looked up at his sister.

"Mimy, don't tell mother. I can't talk about it yet, and she would be so sorry. Just leave it for me to tell her. I'll do it some day; not yet. But I did think Jessie was different. I did think she cared for me a little."