Laid up in Lavender

"Polite to offer to carry you over, child? No, not at all. And now it will be wiser and warmer for you to run down the hill. Come along!"

And without more ado, while I was still choking with rage, he seized my hand and set off at a trot, lugging me through the sloppy places much as I have seen a nurse drag a fractious child down Constitution Hill. It was not wonderful that I soon lost the little breath his speech had left me, and was powerless to complain when we reached the bridge. I could only thank Heaven that there was no sign of Clare. I think I should have died of mortification if she had seen us come down the hill hand-in-hand in that ridiculous fashion. But she had gone home, and at any rate I escaped that degradation.

A wet stool-car and wetter pony were dimly visible on the bridge; to which, as we came up, a damp urchin creeping from some crevice added himself. I was pushed in as if I had no will of my own, the gentleman sprang up beside me, the boy tucked himself away somewhere behind, and the little "teste" set off at a canter, so deceived by the driver's excellent imitation of "Pss," the Norse for "Tchk," that in ten minutes we were at home.

"Well, I never!" Clare said, surveying me from a respectful distance, when at last I was safe in our room. "I would not be seen in such a state by a man for all the fish in the sea!"

And she looked so tall, and trim, and neat, that it was the more provoking. At the moment I was too miserable to answer her; and I had to find comfort in promising myself, that when we were back in Bolton Gardens I would see that Fräulein kept Miss Clare's pretty nose to the grindstone though it were ever so much her last term, or Jack were ever so fond of her. Father was in the plot against me, too. What right had he to thank Mr. Herapath for bringing "his little girl" home safe? He can be pompous enough at times. I never knew a stout Queen's Counsel-and he is stout-who was not, any more than a thin one, who did not contradict. It is in their parents, I believe.

Mr. Herapath dined with us that evening-if fish and potatoes and boiled eggs, and sour bread and pancakes, and claret and coffee can be called a dinner-but nothing I could do, though I made the best of my wretched frock and was as stiff as Clare herself, could alter his first impression. It was too bad; he had no eyes! He either could not or would not see any one but the draggled Bab-fifteen at most and a very tom-boy-whom he had carried across the river. He styled Clare, who talked Baedeker to him in her primmest and most precocious way, Miss Guest; and once at least during the evening he dubbed me plain Bab. I tried to freeze him with a look then, and father gave him a taste of his pompous manner, saying coldly that I was older than I seemed. But it was not a bit of use; I could see that he set it all down to the grand airs of a spoiled child. If I had put my hair up, it might have opened his eyes, but Clare teased me about it and I was too proud for that.

When I asked him if he was fond of dancing, he said good-naturedly, "I don't visit very much, Miss Bab. I am generally engaged in the evening."

Here was a chance. I was going to say that that no doubt was the reason why I had never met him, when father ruthlessly cut me short by asking, "You are not in the law?"

"No," he replied. "I am in the London Fire Brigade."

I think that we all upon the instant saw him in a helmet sitting at the door of the fire station by St. Martin's Church. Clare turned crimson, and his host seemed on a sudden to call his patent to mind. The moment before I had been as angry as angry could be with our guest, but I was not going to look on and see him snubbed when he was dining with us and all. So I rushed into the gap as quickly as surprise would let me with, "Oh, dear, what fun! Do tell me all about a fire!"

It made matters-my matters-worse, for I could have cried with vexation when I read in his face that he had looked for their astonishment; while the ungrateful fellow set down my eager remark to childish ignorance.

"Some time I will," he said with a quiet smile de haut en bas; "but I do not often attend one in person. I am the Chief's private secretary, aide-de-camp, and general factotum."

It turned out that he was the son of a certain Canon Herapath, so that father lost sight of his patent box altogether, and they set to discussing Mr. Gladstone, while I slipped off to bed feeling as small as I ever did in my life and out of temper with everybody. Not for a long time had I been used to young men talking politics to him, when they could talk-politics-to me.

Possibly I deserved the week of vexation which followed; but it was almost more than I could bear. He-Mr. Herapath, of course-was always on the spot fishing or lounging outside the little white posting-house, taking walks and meals with us, and seeming heartily to enjoy father's society. He came with us when we drove to the top of the pass to get a glimpse of the Sultind peak; and it looked so brilliantly clear and softly beautiful as it seemed to float, just tinged with colour, in a far-off atmosphere of its own beyond the dark ranges of nearer hills, that I began to think at once of the drawing-room in Bolton Gardens with a cosy fire burning, and afternoon tea coming up. The tears came to my eyes, and he saw them before I could turn away from the view; and said to father that he feared his little girl was tired as well as cold-and so spoiled all my pleasure. I looked back afterwards as father and I drove down; he was walking beside Clare's cariole and they were laughing heartily.

And that was the way always. He was such an elder brother to me-a thing I never had and do not want-that a dozen times a day I set my teeth together viciously and vowed that if ever we met in London-but what nonsense that was, because, of course, it mattered nothing to me what he was thinking, only he had no right to be so rudely familiar. That was all; but it was quite enough to make me dislike him.

However, a sunny morning in the holidays is a cheerful thing, and when I strolled down stream with my rod on the day after our expedition, I felt that I could enjoy myself very nearly as much as I had, before his coming spoiled our party. I dawdled along, now trying a pool, now clambering up the hillsides to pick raspberries, and now counting the magpies that flew across, feeling altogether very placid and good and contented. I had chosen the lower river because Mr. Herapath usually fished the upper part, and I would not be ruffled this nice day. So I was the more vexed when I came upon him fishing; and fishing where he had no right to be. Father had spoken to him about the danger of it, and he had as good as said he would not do it again. Yet he was there, thinking, I daresay, that we should not know. It was a spot where one bank rose into a cliff, frowning over a deep pool at the foot of some falls. Close to the cliff the water ran with the speed of a mill race. But on the far side of this current there was a bit of slack water so promising that it had tempted some one to devise means to fish it, which from the top of the cliff was impossible. Just above the water was a ledge, a foot wide, which might have served only it did not reach the nearer end of the cliff. However, the foolhardy person had espied this, and got over the gap by bridging the latter with a bit of plank, and then had drowned himself or gone away, in either case leaving his board to tempt others to do likewise.

And there was Mr. Herapath fishing from the ledge. It made me giddy to look at him. The rock overhung the water so much that he could not stand upright; the first person who fished there must have learned to curl himself up from much sleeping in Norwegian beds, which were short for me. I thought of this as I watched him, and I laughed, and was for going on. But when I had walked a few yards, meaning to pass round the rear of the cliff, I began to fancy all sorts of foolish things might happen. I felt sure that I should have no more peace or pleasure if I left him there. I hesitated. Yes, I would. I would go down, and ask him to leave the place; and, of course, he would do it.

I lost no time, but ran down the slope. My way lay over loose shale mingled with large stones, and it was steep. It is wonderful how swiftly a thing that cannot be undone is done, and we are left wishing-oh, so vainly-that we could put the world, and all things in it, back by a few seconds. I was checking myself near the bottom, when a big stone on which I stepped moved under me. The shale began to slip in a mass, and the stone to roll. It was done in a moment. I stayed myself, that was easy, but the stone took two bounds, jumped sideways, struck the piece of board which only rested lightly at either end, and before I could take it in the little bridge plunged end first into the current, which swept it out of sight in an instant.

He threw up his hands, for he had turned, and we both saw it happen. He made indeed as if he would try to save it, but that was impossible. Then, while I cowered in dismay, he waved his arm to me in the direction of home-again and again. The roar of the falls drowned what he said, but I guessed his meaning. I could not help him myself, but I could fetch help. It was three miles to Breistolen, rough rocky ones, and I doubted whether he could keep his cramped position with that noise deafening him, and the endless whirling stream before his eyes, while I was going and coming. But there was no better way; and even as I wavered, he signalled to me again imperatively. For an instant everything seemed to go round with me, but it was not the time for that, and I tried to collect myself, and harden my heart. Up the bank I went steadily, and once at the top set off at a rim homewards.

I cannot tell how I did it; how I passed over the uneven ground or whether I went quickly or slowly save by the reckoning father made afterwards. I only remember one long hurrying scramble; now I panted uphill, now I ran down, now I was on my face in a hole, breathless and half-stunned, and now I was up to my knees in water. I slipped and dropped down places from which I should at other times have shrunk, and hurt myself so that I bore the marks for months. But I thought nothing of these things: all my being was spent in hurrying on for his life, the clamour of every cataract I passed seeming to stop my heart's beating with fear. So I reached Breistolen and panted over the bridge and up to the little white house lying so quiet in the afternoon sunshine, father's stool-car even then at the door ready to take him to some favorite pool. Somehow I made him understand that Herapath was in danger, drowning already, for all I knew; and then I seized a great pole which was leaning against the porch, and climbed into the car. Father was not slow either; he snatched a coil of rope from the luggage, and away we went, a man and boy whom he had hastily called running behind us. We had lost very little time, but so much may happen in a little time.

We were forced to leave the car a quarter of a mile from the river, and walk or run the rest of the way. We all ran, even father, as I had never known him run before. My heart sank at the groan he uttered when I pointed out the spot. We came to it one by one and we all looked. The ledge was empty. Mr. Herapath was gone. I suppose I was tired out. At any rate I could only look at the water in a dazed way, and cry without much feeling that it was my doing; while the men shouted to one another in strange hushed voices and searched about for any sign of his fate-"James Herapath!" So he had written his name only yesterday in the travellers' book at the posting-house, and I had sullenly watched him from the window, and then had sneaked to the book and read it. That was yesterday, and now! Oh, to hear him say "Bab" once more!

"Bab! Why, Miss Bab, what is the matter?"

Safe and sound! Yes, when I turned he was there, safe, and strong, and cool, rod in hand, and a smile in his eyes. Just as I had seen him yesterday, and thought never to see him again; and saying "Bab" exactly as of old, so that something in my throat-it may have been anger at his rudeness, but I do not think it was-prevented me answering a word until all the others came around us, and a babel of Norse and English, and something that was neither yet both, set in.

"But how is this?" my father objected, when he could be heard, "you are quite dry, my boy?"

"Dry! Why not, sir? For goodness' sake, what is the matter?"

"The matter! Didn't you fall in, or something of the kind?" father asked, bewildered by the new aspect of the case.

"It does not look like it, does it? Your daughter gave me a very uncomfortable start by nearly doing so."

Every one looked at me for an explanation. "How did you manage to get from the ledge?" I asked feebly. Where was the mistake? I had not dreamed it.

"From the ledge? Why, by the other end, to be sure. Of course I had to walk back round the hill; but I did not mind. I was thankful that it was the plank and not you that fell in."

"I-I thought-you could not get from the ledge," I muttered. The possibility of getting off at the other end had never occurred to me; and so I had made such a simpleton of myself. It was too absurd, too ridiculous. It was no wonder that they all screamed with laughter at the fool's errand they had come upon, and stamped about and clung to one another. But, when he laughed too-and he did until the tears came into his eyes-there was not an ache or pain in my body-and I had cut my wrist to the bone against a splinter of rock-that hurt me one-half as much. Surely he might have seen another side to it. But he did not; and so I managed to hide my bandaged wrist from him, and father drove me home. There I broke down entirely, and Clare put me to bed, and petted me, and was very good to me. And when I came down next day, with an ache in every part of me, he was gone.

"He asked me to tell you," said Clare, not looking up from the fly she was tying at the window, "that he thought you were the bravest girl he had ever met."

So he understood now, when others had explained it to him. "No, Clare," I said coldly, "he did not say that; he said 'the bravest little girl.'" For indeed, lying upstairs with the window open I had heard him set off on his long drive to Laerdalsören. As for father he was half-proud and half-ashamed of my foolishness, and wholly at a loss to think how I could have made the mistake.

"You've generally some common-sense, my dear," he said that day at dinner, "and how in the world you could have been so ready to fancy the man was in danger, I-can-not-imagine!"

"Father," Clare put in suddenly, "your elbow is upsetting the salt."

And as I had to move my seat at that moment to avoid the glare of the stove which was falling on my face, we never thought it out.

CHAPTER II

HIS STORY

I was not dining out much at that time, partly because my acquaintance in town was limited, and partly because I cared little for it. But these were pleasant people, the old gentleman witty and amusing, the children, lively girls, nice to look at and good to talk with. All three had a holiday flavour about them wholesome to recall in Scotland Yard; and as I had expected that, playtime over, I should see no more of them, I was pleased to find that Mr. Guest had not forgotten me, and pleased also-foreseeing that we should kill our fish over again-to regard his invitation to dine at a quarter to eight as a royal command.

But if I took it so, I was wanting in the regal courtesy to match. What with one delay owing to work which would admit of none, and another caused by a cabman strange to the ways of town, it was fifteen minutes after the hour named when I reached Bolton Gardens. A stately man, so like the Queen's Counsel, that it was plain upon whom the latter modelled himself, ushered me into the dining-room, where Guest greeted me kindly, and met my excuses by apologies on his part-for preferring, I suppose, the comfort of eleven people to mine. Then he took me down the table, and said, "My daughter," and Miss Guest shook hands with me and pointed to the chair at her left. I had still, as I unfolded my napkin, to say, "Clear, if you please," and then I was free to turn and apologise to her-feeling a little shy, and being, as I have said, a somewhat infrequent diner out.

I think that I never saw so remarkable a likeness-to her younger sister-in my life. She might have been little Bab herself, but for her dress and, of course, some differences. Miss Guest could not be more than nineteen, in form almost as fairy-like as the little one, and with the same child-like innocent look in her face. She had the big, grey eyes, too, that were so charming in Bab; but hers were more tender and thoughtful, and a thousand times more charming. Her hair too was brown and wavy; only, instead of hanging loose or in a pig-tail anywhere and anyhow in a fashion I well remembered, it was coiled in a coronal on the shapely little head, that looked Greek, and in its gracious, stately, old-fashioned pose was quite unlike Bab's. Her dress, of some creamy, gauzy stuff, revealed the prettiest white throat in the world, and arms decked in pearls, and these, of course, no more recalled my little fishing mate than the sedate self-possession and dignity of the girl, as she talked to her other neighbour, suggested Bab making pancakes and chattering with the landlady's children in her wonderfully acquired Norse. It was not Bab in fact: and yet it might have been: an etherealised, queenly womanly Bab, who presently turned to me-

"Have you quite settled down after your holiday?" she asked, staying the apologies I was for pouring into her ear.

"I had until this evening, but the sight of your father is like a breath of fiord air. I hope your sisters are well."

"My sisters?" she murmured wonderingly, her fork half-way to her pretty mouth and her attitude one of questioning.

"Yes," I said, rather puzzled. "You know they were with your father when I had the good fortune to meet him. Miss Clare and Bab."

She dropped her fork on the plate with a great clatter.

"Perhaps I should say Miss Clare and Miss Bab."

I really began to feel uncomfortable. Her colour rose, and she looked me in the face in an odd way as if she resented the inquiry. It was a relief to me, when, with some show of confusion, she faltered, "Oh, yes, I beg your pardon, of course they were! How very foolish of me. They are quite well, thank you," and so was silent again. But I understood now. Mr. Guest had omitted to mention my name, and she had taken me for some one else of whose holiday she knew. I gathered from the aspect of the table and the room that the Guests saw much company, and it was a very natural mistake, though by the grave look she bent upon her plate it was clear that the young hostess was taking herself to task for it: not without, if I might judge from the lurking smile at the corners of her mouth, a humorous sense of the slip, and perhaps of the difference between myself and the gentleman whose part I had been unwittingly supporting. Meanwhile I had a chance of looking at her unchecked; and thought of Dresden china, she was so dainty.

"You were nearly drowned, or something of the kind, were you not?" she asked, after an interval during which we had both talked to others.

"Well, not precisely. Your sister fancied I was in danger, and behaved in the pluckiest manner-so bravely that I can almost feel sorry that the danger was not real to dignify her heroism."

"That was like her," she answered in a tone just a little scornful. "You must have thought her a terrible tom-boy."

While she was speaking there came one of those dreadful lulls in the talk, and Mr. Guest, overhearing, cried, "Who is that you are abusing, my dear? Let us all share in the sport. If it's Clare, I think I can name one who is a far worse hoyden upon occasion."

"It is no one of whom you have ever heard, father," she answered, archly. "It is a person in whom Mr. – Mr. Herapath-" I had murmured my name as she stumbled-"and I are interested. Now tell me, did you not think so?" she murmured, leaning the slightest bit towards me, and opening her eyes as they looked into mine in a way that to a man who had spent the day in a dusty room in Great Scotland Yard was sufficiently intoxicating.

"No," I said, lowering my voice in imitation of hers. "No, Miss Guest, I did not think so at all. I thought your sister a brave little thing, rather careless as children are, but likely to grow into a charming girl."

I wondered, marking how she bit her lip and refrained from assent, whether there might not be something of the shrew about my beautiful neighbour. Her tone when she spoke of her sister seemed to import no great goodwill.

"You think so?" she said, after a pause. "Do you know," with a laughing glance, "that some people think I am like her?"

"Yes," I answered, gravely. "Well, I should be able to judge, who have seen you both and am not an old friend. And I think you are both like and unlike. Your sister has beautiful eyes" – she lowered hers swiftly-"and hair like yours, but her manner and style are different. I can no more fancy Bab in your place than I can picture you, Miss Guest, as I saw her for the first time-and on many after occasions," I added, laughing as much to cover my own hardihood as at the queer little figure I conjured up.

"Thank you," she replied-and for some reason she blushed to her ears. "That, I think, must be enough of compliments for to-night-as you are not an old friend." And she turned away, leaving me to curse my folly in saying so much, when our acquaintance was in the bud, and as susceptible to over-warmth as to a temperature below zero.

A moment later the ladies left us. The flush I had brought to her cheek lingered, as she swept past me with a wondrous show of dignity in one so young. Mr. Guest came down and took her place, and we talked of the "land of berries," and our adventures there, while the rest-older friends-listened indulgently or struck in from time to time with their own biggest fish and deadliest flies.

I used to wonder why women like to visit dusty chambers; why, they get more joy-I am fain to think they do-out of a scrambling tea up three pairs of stairs in Pump Court, than from the same materials-and comfort withal-in their own house. I imagine it is for the same reason that the bachelor finds a charm in a lady's drawing-room, and there, if anywhere, sees her with a reverent mind. A charm and a subservience which I felt to the full in the Guests' drawing-room-a room rich in subdued colours and a cunning blending of luxury and comfort. Yet it depressed me. I felt myself alone. Mr. Guest had passed on to others and I stood aside, the sense that I was not of these people troubling me in a manner as new as it was absurd: for I had been in the habit of rather despising "society." Miss Guest was at the piano, the centre of a circle of soft light, which showed up a keen-faced, close-shaven man leaning over her with the air of one used to the position. Every one else was so fully engaged that I may have looked, as well as felt, forlorn; at any rate, meeting her eyes I could have fancied she was regarding me with amusement-almost with triumph. It must have been mere fancy, bred of self-consciousness, for the next moment she beckoned me to her, and said to her cavalier-

"There, Jack, Mr. Herapath is going to talk to me about Norway now, so that I don't want you any longer. Perhaps you won't mind stepping up to the schoolroom-Fräulein and Clare are there-and telling Clare, that-that-oh, anything."

There is no piece of ill-breeding so bad to my mind as for a man who is at home in a house to flaunt his favour in the face of other guests. That young man's manner as he left her, and the smile of intelligence which passed between them, were such a breach of good manners as would have ruffled any one. They ruffled me-yes, me, although it was no concern of mine what she called him, or how he conducted himself-so that I could do nothing but stand by the piano and sulk. One bear makes another, you know.

She did not speak; and I, content to watch the slender hands stealing over the keys, would not, until my eyes fell upon her right wrist. She had put off her bracelets and so disclosed a scar upon it, something about which-not its newness-so startled me that I said abruptly, "That is very strange! Pray tell me how you did it?"

She looked up, saw what I meant, and stopping hastily, put on her bracelets; to all appearances so vexed by my thoughtless question, and anxious to hide the mark, that I was quick to add humbly, "I asked because your sister hurt her wrist in nearly the same place on the day when she thought I was in trouble. And the coincidence struck me."