The Honorable Miss by L. T. Meade

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CHAPTER XII.

NINA, YOU ARE SO PERSISTENT.

"I wish you wouldn't worry me so, miss."

"Well, answer my question. Has Mr. Hart come back?"

"Yes--no--I'm sure I can't say. Maybe he's in his room, maybe he's not.
You do look dirty, miss, and tired--my word, awful tired. Now, where
have you been, Miss Josephine, since early yesterday morning? After no
good, I'll be bound. Oh, dear me, yes, after no good! You're a wild one,
and you're a daring one; and you'll come to a bad end, for all your eyes
are so bright, if you don't mind."

Josephine's queer, restless eyes flashed with an angry gleam.

"Do you know what this is?" she said, doubling up her small hand, and
thrusting the hard-looking fist within an inch or two of her irate
landlady's nose. "I knocked a man down before now with this, and I have
no respect for women. You'd better not anger me, Mrs. Timms."

"Oh, dear no, miss, I'm sure I meant no disrespect!"

"That's right. Don't say what you don't mean in future."

"I won't, Miss Josephine. Now I come to think of it, I expect Hart is at
home; I heard him shuffling about overhead last night."

"I'll go up and see," said Josephine.

She nodded to Mrs. Timms, and walked slowly, as though she were dead
tired, and every step was an effort to her, up the stairs. They were
rickety stairs, very dirty and dark, and unkept. Josephine went on and
on, until her upward ascent ended under a sloping attic roof. Here she
knocked at a closed door.

"Come in," said a voice.

She entered a long, low room, which did service as a sitting-room,
kitchen and studio, all combined. A little, old man with a long, white
beard and a bald head was bending over a stove, frying eggs.

"Is that you, Nina?" he said, without looking round. "If it is, you may
as well fry these eggs while I lay the cloth for supper."

"No, you can finish them yourself," replied Josephine. "I'm dead tired.
I'd rather eat no supper than cook it."

She flung herself into a long, low wicker-work chair, folded her hands
and closed her eyes. The old man turned the tail of one eye to glance at
her. Then he resumed his cooking, attending to it very carefully,
removing each egg, as it was browned, to a hot and clean dish which
stood in readiness.

"There," he said, at last, "supper's ready. Here's the vinegar, here's
the pepper, here's the salt, here's the pewter jug with the beer, here's
the bread and butter, and last, but not least, here's your tea,
Josephine. You're nowhere without your tea, are you, child?"

"Pour it out for me," said Josephine. "Put an egg on a plate and give it
to me. I'll be better when I've eaten. I can't talk until I have eaten.
I was taken this way last night--I'll be better presently."

The old man gave her a long, curious glance; then he fetched a tray,
piled it with refreshments, and brought it to her side. She ate and
drank ravenously. The food acted on her like magic; she sat upright--her
eyes sparkled, her pallor left her, and the slight shade of petulance
and ill-humor which had characterized her when she entered the room gave
place to a sunshiny and radiant smile.

"Well, Daddy," she said, getting up, going to the old man and giving him
a kiss. "So you have come back at last. I was pretty sick of being a
whole fortnight by myself, with no one but that interesting Mrs. Timms
for company. You never wrote to me, and however careful I was, that five
shillings wouldn't go far. What did you do in London? And why didn't you
write?"

"One question at a time, Nina. Don't strangle me, child. Sit down
quietly, and I'll tell you my news. I'm a good grandfather to you,
Josephine. I'm a very good and faithful grandfather to you."

"So you tell me every day of my life. I'll retort back now--I'm a good
grandchild to you--the best in the world."

"Bless me, what have you ever done, chit, but eat my bread and drink my
water? However, I have news at last. Now, how eager you look! You would
like to be a fine lady and forget your old granddad."

"I'd like to be a fine lady, certainly," responded Josephine.

She said nothing further, but sitting still, with her small hands
crossed in her lap, she absolutely devoured the old man's face with her
eyes.

He was accustomed to her gaze, which glittered and shone, and never
wavered, and was by some people thought uncanny. He finished his supper
slowly and methodically, and until he had eaten the last mouthful, and
drained off the last drop of beer in the pewter mug, he didn't speak.

Then with a sharp glance at the girl he said, suddenly:

"So you wanted to take me unawares?"

"What do you mean, Grandfather?"

"You know what I mean well enough. However, I'll tell you, you have been
on the tramp; you have no money; but you thought your legs would carry
you where your heart wanted to be. Shall I go on?"

"Oh, yes, you may say anything you fancy. Stay, I'll say it for you.
Yesterday I walked to Northbury. Northbury is over twenty miles from
here. I walked every step of the way. In the evening I got there--I was
footsore and weary. I had one and sixpence in my purse, no more for
food, no more for bribes, no more for anything. I went to Northbury to
see the Bertrams--to see that fine lady, that beloved friend of mine,
Mrs. Bertram. She was from home. You probably know where she really was.
I bribed the gatekeeper, and got into the grounds of Rosendale Manor. I
frightened a chit of a schoolgirl, a plain, little, unformed, timorous
creature. She was a Bertram, coming home from a late dissipation. She
spoke of her fright, and gave her sister the cue. About midnight
Catherine Bertram came out to seek me. What's the matter, Grand-dad?"

"Good heavens! Nina, that glib tongue of yours has not been blabbing.
Catherine! What is Miss Bertram's Christian name to you?"

"Never mind. Her Christian name, and she herself also, are a good deal
to me. As to blabbing, I never blab; I saw her, she spoke to me; I slept
at the lodge; I returned home to-day."

"You walked home?"

"Yes, and I am dead tired; I want to go to bed now."

"You can't for a few minutes. I have a few words to say first.
Josephine, I have always been a good grandfather to you."

"Perhaps you have done your best, Grand-dad, but your best has not been
much. I am clothed after a fashion, and fed after a style, and
educated!" she filliped her slender fingers scornfully; "educated! I
belong to the self-taught. Still, after your lights, you have been a
good Grand-dad. Now, what is all this preamble about? I can scarcely
keep my eyes open. If you are not quick your words will soon fall
unregarded, for I shall be in the arms of that god of delight,
Morpheus."

"I have something very important to say, child. I want to lay a command
upon you."

"What is that?"

"You are not to act the spy on the Bertrams again."

"The spy? What do you mean?"

"What I say. You are not to do it. I have made arrangements, and the
Bertrams are to be unmolested. I have given my oath, and you must abide
by it."

"What if I refuse?"

"Then we part company. You go one way, I another. You are truly a
beggar, and can take up no other position without my aid. You have a
story to tell which no one will believe, for I alone hold the proofs.
Talk much about your fine secret, and what will be the result? People
will think you off your head. Be guided by me, and all comes right in
the end and in the meantime we share the spoils."

"The spoils," said Josephine, "what do you mean?

"I can give you a practical answer, Nina. I have made a good bargain, a
splendid bargain; seeing that I have only put on the first screw, my
success has largely anticipated my wildest hopes. Josephine, my poor
girl, you need no longer suffer the pangs of hunger and neglect. You and
I are no longer penniless. What do you say to an income? What do you say
to four hundred a year?"

Josephine put up her thin, white hand to her forehead.

"Four hundred a year?" she repeated, vaguely. "I don't quite know what
it means. What have we now?"

"Anything or nothing. Sometimes a pound a week, sometimes two pounds,
sometimes five shillings."

"And we have in the future?"

"Didn't I tell you, child? Four hundred a year. One hundred pounds paid
regularly every quarter. Got without earning, got without toiling for.
Ours whether we are sick or well; ours under any circumstances from this
day forward; ours just for keeping a little bit of a secret to
ourselves."

"A secret which keeps me out of my own."

"We have no money to prove it, child, at present. In the meantime, this
is a certainty. Whenever we get our proofs complete we can cease to take
this annuity."

"This bribe, you mean. I scorn it. I hate it. I won't touch it."

Josephine's eyes again gleamed with anger.

"I hate bribes," she repeated.

"All right, child. You can go on starving. You can go your own way, I
mine. For myself, at least, I have accepted the annuity; and if you
anger me any more, I'll burn the documents tonight, which give you the
shadow of a claim."

Josephine turned pale. There were moments when, fearless as she was, she
feared this queer old man. The present was one of them. She sat quite
still for a moment or two, during which she thought deeply. Then she
spoke in an altered tone.

"Grandfather, if I consent to make no fuss, to say nothing, to reveal
nothing by word or action, will you give me half your annuity?"

"Why so, Nina? Had we not better live together? When all is said and
done, I'd miss you, Grandchild, if you left me."

"You'd get over that, Grand-dad. These are not the days when people are
especially affectionate. Will you give me two hundred a year, and let me
live away from you?"

The old man looked down at the floor, and up at the ceiling; then
furtively into his granddaughter's face, then away from her.

"It's late now, we'll talk of it to-morrow," he said.

"No, I am not sleepy any longer. Two hundred a year is worth staying
awake for. Will you give it to me? You can promise to-night as well as
tomorrow."

"This is an important thing. I can't make up my mind all in a minute.
I've got to think."

"You can think now. I'll give you half-an-hour. I'll shut my tired eyes,
and you can think hard for half-an-hour."

"Nina, you are so persistent."

"Exactly, I am so persistent. Now my eyes are shut. Please begin to
think."

CHAPTER XIII.

THE WHITE BOAT AND THE GREEN.

About a fortnight after the events mentioned in the last chapter, the
landlady of the Blue Lion, the little slatternly village inn where Mr.
Hart and his granddaughter had their quarters, was somewhat
disappointed, somewhat puzzled, and certainly possessed by the demon of
curiosity when Hart told her that he and his granddaughter intended to
take their departure that evening. Hart often went away; Mrs. Timms was
quite accustomed to his sudden exits, but his granddaughter was always
left as a hostage behind. Hart with his queer ways, his erratic
payments, was perhaps not the most inviting lodger for an honest
landlady to count upon, but Mrs. Timms had grown accustomed to him. She
scolded him, and grumbled at him, but on the whole she made a good thing
out of him, for no one could be more generous than old Hart when he was
at all flush of cash.

He came down, however, this morning, and told her he was going.

"For a fortnight or so?" responded Mrs. Timms. "You'll leave Miss
Josephine behind as usual? I'll take good care of her."

"No, Miss Josephine is also going. Make out our bills, my good Timms,
I can pay you in full."

That evening there arrived at Northbury by the seven o'clock train a
single first-class passenger--a girl dressed in a long gray cloak, and a
big, picturesque shady hat stepped on to the platform. She was the only
passenger to alight at Northbury, and the one or two sleepy porters
regarded her with interest and admiration. She was very graceful, and
her light-colored eyes had a peculiar quick expression which made people
turn to watch her again.

The strange girl had scarcely any luggage--only a small portmanteau
covered with a neat case of brown holland, and a little trunk to match.

She asked one of the porters to call a cab, did not disdain the shaky
and ghastly-looking conveyance which Loftus Bertram had been too proud
to use; sprang lightly into it, desired the porter to put her luggage on
the roof, and gave the address of Rosendale Manor.

"Oh, that accounts for it," said the man to his mate. "She's one of them
proud Bertram folk. I thought by the looks of her as she didn't belong
to none of the Northbury people."

The other laughed.

"She have got an eye," he said. "My word, don't it shine? Seems to
scorch one up."

"There's the 7.12 luggage train signalled, Jim!" exclaimed the other.

The men forgot the strange girl and returned to their duties.

Meanwhile, she sat back in her cab, and gazed complacently about her.
She knew the scene through which she was passing--she had looked on it
before. Very travel-stained and weary she had been then; very fresh and
keen, and all alive she felt now.

She threw open the windows of the close cab, and took a long breath of
the delicious sea air. It was a hot evening towards the middle of July,
but a slight breeze rippled the little waves in the harbor, and then
travelled up and up until it reached the girl in the dusty cab.

The Northburians were most of them out on the water. No one who knew
anything of the ways of Northbury expected to see the good folk in the
streets on an evening like this. No, the water was their highway, the
water was their pleasure-scene. Each house owned a boat, each garden
ended in steps against which the said boat was moored. It was the
tiniest walk from the supper room or the high tea-table to the little
green-painted boat, and then away to float over the limpid waves.

All the girls in Northbury could row, steer--in short, manage a boat as
well as their brothers.

There was a view of the straggling, steep little High Street from the
water; and the Bells now, in a large white boat with four oars, and
occupied at the present moment by Mrs. Bell, fat and comfortable in the
stern, Alice and Sophy each propelling a couple of oars, and the
blushing, conscious Matty in the bow, where Captain Bertram bore her
company, all saw the old cab, as it toiled up the hill in the direction
of Rosendale Manor.

"Do look at Davis's cab!" exclaimed Matty. "Look, Captain Bertram, it's
going in your direction. I wonder now, if any one has come by the train.
It's certainly going to the Manor. There are no other houses out in that
direction. Do look, Captain Bertram."

"Lor, Matty, you are so curious!" exclaimed her sister Sophy, who
overheard these remarks from her position as bow oar. "As if Captain
Bertram cared! You always do so fuss over little things, Matty. Even if
there are visitors coming to the Manor, I'm sure the captain doesn't
care. He is not like us who never see anybody. Are you, Captain
Bertram?"

"I beg your pardon," said the captain, waking put of a reverie into
which he had sunk. "Did you speak, Miss Bell?" he continued, turning
with a little courteous movement, which vastly became him, towards the
enamored Matty.

"I said a cab was going up the hill," said Matty.

"Oh, really! A cab _is_ an interesting sight, particularly a
Northbury cab. Shall I make a riddle for you on the spot, Miss Bell?
What is the sole surviving curiosity still to be found out of Noah's
ark?"

Matty went off into her usual half-hysterical laughter.

"Oh! I do declare, Captain Bertram, you are too killingly clever for
anything," she responded. "Oh, my poor side--I'll die if I laugh any
more. Oh, do have mercy on me! To compare that poor cab to Noah's ark!"

"I didn't; it isn't the least like the ark, only I think it must once
have found a shelter within that place of refuge."

"Oh! oh! oh! I am taken with such a stitch when I laugh. You are too
witty, Captain Bertram. Sophy, you must hear what the captain has said.
Oh, you killing, funny man--you must repeat that lovely joke to Sophy."

"Excuse me, it was only meant for Miss Matty's ears."

Matty stopped laughing, to blush all over her face, and Sophy thought it
more decorous to turn her back on the pair.

"Does not that green boat belong to Miss Meadowsweet?" interrupted
Bertram. "Look, Miss Bell, I am sure that is Miss Meadowsweet's boat."

(He had seen it for the last ten minutes, and had been secretly hoping
that Mrs. Bell would unconsciously steer in that direction; she was
going the other way, however, and he was obliged to speak.)

"Yes, that's Beatrice," said Matty, in an indifferent tone. "She
generally goes for a row in the evening."

"All alone like that?"

"Yes, Mrs. Meadowsweet is such a coward. She is afraid of the water."

"Poor Miss Meadowsweet, how sad for her to be by herself!"

Matty gave a furtive and not too well-pleased glance at her captain.

"Bee likes to be alone," she said.

"I should never have thought it. She seems a sociable, bright sort of
girl. Don't you want to talk to her? I know you do. I see it in your
face. You think it will be irksome for me, but, never mind, we need not
stay long. I must not be selfish nor indulge in the wish to keep you all
to myself. I know you want to talk to Miss Meadowsweet, and so you
shall,--I _won't_ have you balked."

Here he raised his voice.

"Mrs. Bell, will you steer over to Miss Meadowsweet's boat? Miss Matty,
here, has something to say to her."

Not an earthly thing had Matty to communicate to her friend, but the
captain had managed to put the matter in such a light that she could
only try to look pleased, and pretend to acquiesce.

"Oh, yes, she had always lots to say to her darling Bee," she murmured.
And then, somehow, her poor little silly spirits went down, and she had
a sensation of feeling rather flat.

As will be seen by the foregoing remarks, Captain Bertram had a rare
gift for making killing and funny speeches.

Matty had over and over pronounced him to be the most brilliantly witty
person she had ever in the whole course of her life encountered. But his
talent as a supposed wit was nothing at all to the cleverness with which
he now managed to keep the large white boat by the side of the small
green one for the remainder of the evening. It was entirely managed by
the superior will of one person, for certainly none of the Bells wished
for this propinquity.

Mrs. Bell, who like a watchful hen-mother was apparently seeing nothing,
and yet all the time was tenderly brooding over the little chick whom
she hoped was soon about to take flight from the parent nest, saw at a
glance that her chick looked nothing at all beside that superior chicken
of Mrs. Meadowsweet's. For Matty's little nose was sadly burnt, and one
lock of her thin limp hair was flying not too picturesquely in the
breeze. And her home-cut jacket was by no means remarkably becoming, and
one of her small, uncovered hands--why _would_ Matty take her
gloves off?--was burnt red, not brown by the sun. Beatrice, on the
contrary, looked as she always did, trim and neat, and bright and
gracious. She had on the gray cashmere dress which she had worn when
Captain Bertram first began to lose his heart to her, and over this,
tonight, she had twisted a long bright crimson scarf. Into her white
hat, too, she had pinned a great bunch of crimson roses, so that,
altogether, Beatrice in her pretty green boat made a beautiful picture.
She would have made this in any case, for her pose was so good, and her
figure fine, but when, in addition, there was a sweet intelligent face
without one scrap of self-consciousness about it, and two gray eyes full
of a tender and sympathetic light, and when the rosy lips only opened to
make the pleasantest and most appropriate speeches, and only to give
utterance to words of tact and kindness, Mrs. Bell was not very far
wrong when she felt a sense of uneasiness for her own poor chick.

Shuffle, however, as she would up in the stern, viciously pull the
rudder string so as to incline the boat away from Beatrice, the
captain's will still kept the green boat and the white together. Was he
likely to give in or to succumb to a woman like Mrs. Bell? Had he not
planned this meeting in his own mind from an early hour that morning?
For had he not met Beatrice and incidentally gathered that she would be
sure to be on the water that night? And after receiving this
information, had he not carefully made his plans, wandering about on the
quay just when the Bells were getting into their boat, accepting the
invitation eagerly given that he should go on the water with them, and
afterwards come home to supper.

"Sophy," Mrs. Bell had gasped, at that critical and triumphant moment in
a whisper, pulling her youngest daughter aside, "fly up to Gibb's at the
corner, and order in two lobsters for supper. The captain loves lobsters
with the coral in them. Be sure you see that they have the coral in
them, Sophy. Fly, child. We'll wait for you here."

And Captain Bertram had overheard this whisper, and mentally determined
that Beatrice Meadowsweet should also eat lobster with coral in it for
supper. Was it likely, therefore, that he would now yield to that
impatient tug of Mrs. Bell's rudder? On the contrary, he put out his
hand in apparently the most unconscious way, and held the little green
boat to the side of the white. In his way he was a diplomat, and even
Matty did not suspect that he wanted to do anything but show her a
kindness by keeping her in such close conversation with her friend.

"It's getting quite chill," suddenly exclaimed Mrs. Bell. "Girls, it's
time for us to be getting home. Your father likes his supper punctually.
Well, Bee, my dear, there's no use in asking you to supper, I suppose?
Of course, more than welcome you'd be if you would come, lovey, but
you're such a daughter--one in a thousand. I assure you, Captain
Bertram, I can hardly ever get that girl to leave her mother alone in
the evening."

Beatrice laughed.

"It so happens," she said, "that my mother is having tea and supper
to-night at Mrs. Butler's. So if you really care to have me, Mrs. Bell,
I shall be delighted to come."

Beatrice, the popular, the beloved of all in the town, never knew, never
to her dying day, that on a certain memorable occasion, good-humored,
fat, pompous Mrs. Bell would have given half a sovereign to box her
ears. The astute captain, however, guessed her feelings, and chuckled
inwardly. He had also found out during his brief morning's conversation
that Mrs. Meadowsweet was going to sup from home.

"How delightful you look, Miss Bell!" he said, suddenly, fixing his dark
eyes on Matty.

Their glance caused her to start and blush.

"Mrs. Bell," he said, raising his voice again, "Miss Matty has been so
anxious to have Miss Meadowsweet's company this evening. And now we are
all happy," he added, gayly. "Shall I give you another riddle, Miss
Matty?"

Mrs. Bell's anxious brows relaxed, and she smiled inwardly.

"Poor man! He is over head and ears in love," she murmured. "I suppose
he thinks Beatrice will play gooseberry with the other girls, and leave
him more chance to be alone with little Matty. She does _not_ look
her best, that I will say for her; but, poor fellow, he sees no faults,
that's evident. How beautiful the love-light in his eyes is--ah, dear
me, it reminds me of the time when I was young, and Bell used to go on
his knees to me--Bell hadn't eyes like Captain Bertram though. Dear,
dear, he is attentive, poor man, and how close he bends over Matty. I'll
help him, so I will. I'll take Beatrice and the other girls away when
once we get out of the boat. We four will walk up to the house together,
and let Captain Bertram and his little girl follow. Why, of course,
she's his little girl; bless her, the dear child! Then when we get in,
I'll get Bee and Alice and Sophy to come upstairs by way of consulting
how Matty's new dress is to be made, so the two poor things can have the
drawing-room to themselves. I shouldn't be a bit surprised if he popped
there and then. Well, I am gratified. Bertram is a pretty name--Matilda
Bertram! She won't like to be known as Matty, then. 'Mrs. Captain
Bertram'--it sounds very stylish. I wonder how much money pa will allow
for the trousseau. And how am I to manage about the breakfast? None of
our rooms are big, and all the town's people will want to be asked. It
isn't for me to turn my back on old friends; but I doubt if the Bertrams
will like to meet every one, of course, they are the first to be
considered. Lor, Sophy, how you startled me; what's the matter, child?"

"You're in a brown study, ma. How much longer are you going to stay in
the boat? We have all landed."

"Good gracious! mercy mother! Help me out quick, Sophy, quick! Bee,
Beatrice, come and lend me your hand. You are bigger than my girls, and
my legs are always a little unsteady in a boat. Oh, not you, Captain
Bertram, I beg, I pray. You just go on with Matty to the house, and
we'll follow presently. Go on like a good man, and don't bother
yourself."

Here she winked broadly at Beatrice, who started and colored.

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