The Unbidden Guest

But the dance went on through all, being highly appropriate, at all events to verse one, which ran: —

“Yuss! A fling and a slide with a pal, inside,It isn’t ‘alf bad – but mind you!The spot for a ‘op is in front o’ the shopWith a fried-fish-breeze be’ind you…Well! Every lass was bold as brass,But divvle a one a Venus;An’ Rorty ‘Arry as I’m to marryThe only man between us!”

Here Missy and the music stopped together, Mr. Appleton holding his fingers in readiness over the next notes, while Missy interrupted her dance, too, to step forward and open fire upon her audience in the following prose: —

“Now that’s just ‘ow the ‘ole thing ‘appened. They wouldn’t give my pore ‘Arry no peace – catch them! Well, ‘Arry’e done ‘s level – I will say that for ‘im. ‘E took on three at once; but ‘is legs wouldn’t go round fast enough, an’ ‘is arms wouldn’t go round at all – catch them! Now would you believe it? When ‘e’s ‘ad enough o’ the others – a nasty common low lot they was, too – ’e ‘as the cheek to come to yours truly. But – catch me! ‘No, ‘Arry,’ I sez, ‘ere’s 2d. to go and ‘ave a pint o’ four-’.lf,’ I sez, ‘w’ich you must need it,’ I sez – just like that. So ‘e goes an’ ‘as ‘alf a dozen. That’s my ‘Arry all over, that is! An’ w’en ‘e come back ‘e ‘as the impidence to ax me again. But I give ‘im a look like this,” cried Missy, leering horribly at the venerable Crowdy. “Such a look! Just like that” – with a repetition of the leer for Mrs. Teesdale’s special benefit – “’.ause I seen what was wrong with ‘im in the twinkling of a dress-improver. An’ after that – chorus-up, Mr. Appleton! – why, after that —

“‘Arry ‘e ‘ad the ‘ump,An’ I lets ‘im know it – plump‘E swore ‘e’d not,So ‘e got it ‘ot,I caught ‘im a good ole crump.You should ‘a’ seen ‘im jump!I didn’t give a dump!For I yells to ‘is pals‘Now look at ‘im, gals —Arry, ‘e ‘as the ‘ump!’.rdquo;

The dancing had been taken up again with the chorus. There was some dancing plain at the end of it. Then came verse two: —

“‘E swore and cussed till you thought ‘e’d bust,W’ich’ is ‘abit is when drinky;‘E cussed and swore till ‘is mouth was soreAn’ the street was painted pinky.So I sez, sez I, to a stander-byAs was standin’ by to listen,‘We’ve ‘ad quite enough o’ the reg’lar rough,An’ a bit too much o’ this ‘un!’.rdquo;

“‘Yuss,’.rdquo; continued Missy without a break, “‘an’ if you’re a man,’ I sez, ‘come an’ ‘elp shift this ‘ere bloomin’ imitition,’ I sez. ‘Right you are,’ ‘e sez, ‘since you put it so flatterin’ like. An’ wot do they call you, my dear,’ sez ‘e. ‘That’s my bloomin’ business,’ sez I, ‘wot’s yours on the charge-sheet?’ ‘Ted,’ sez ‘e. ‘Right,’ sez I. ‘You git a holt of ‘is ‘eels, Ted, an’ I’ll ‘ang on to ‘is ‘air!’.rdquo;

Up to this point matters had proceeded without audible let or hindrance. But it appeared that at the psychological moment now reached by the narrator the prostrate hero had regained the command of his tongue, and the use he made of it was represented by Missy in so voluble and violent a harangue, couched in such exceedingly strong language, and all hurled so pointedly at the heads of Mr. and Mrs. Teesdale on the sofa opposite the fire-place, that an inevitable interruption now occurred.

“It’s quite disgusting! I won’t allow such language in my house. Stop at once!” cried Mrs. T. half rising; but Missy’s voice was louder; while old David stretched an arm in front of his wife and fenced her to the sofa.

“Sit still, my dear, and don’t be foolish,” said he, quite firmly. “Can’t you see that it’s part of the song, and only in fun?”

“Only in fun!” echoed Missy, whose speaking voice had risen to a hoarse scream. “Ho, yuss, an’ I s’pose it was fun between ‘Arry an’ me an’ Ted? You bet your bags it wasn’t! Why, time we’d done with ‘im, Ted’s rigging was gone to glory – all but ‘is chest-protector. And as for me, you couldn’t ha’ made a decent pen-wiper out o’ my ‘ole attire. An’ why? Why ‘cause – now then, you at the pianner! – ’cause —

“‘Arry’ e’ ad the ‘ump —The liquorin’ lushin’ lump —So I sez to Ted,“Ere, sit on ‘is ‘ead,Or shove ‘im under the pump!’Ted ‘e turns out a trump.We done it with bump an’ thump.For that ‘orrible ‘ArryWas ‘eavy to carry —An’ ‘Arry ‘e ‘ad ‘ump!”

Now not one of them guessed that this was the end of the song. They had made up their minds to more and worse, and they got it in Missy’s final dance. She was wearing a dark blue skirt of some thin material. Already there had been glimpses of a white underskirt and a pair of crimson ankles, but now there were further and fuller views. John William and Arabella had been curiously and painfully fascinated from the beginning. Their father was still barring their mother to the sofa with an outstretched arm. The poor old minister sat forward in his chair with his eyes protruding from his head. His junior, who was still thumping the old piano as though his life depended upon it, was the one person present who saw nothing of what was going on; and he suspected nothing amiss; he had been too busy with his notes to attend even to the words. Every other eye was fixed upon the dancing girl; every other forehead was wet with a cold perspiration. But Mr. Appleton was so far unconsciously infected with the spirit of the proceedings that he was now playing that banjo accompaniment at about double his rate of starting. And the ornaments were rattling on mantelpiece and table and bracket, and a small vase fell with a crash into the fender – Missy had brought it down with the toe of one high-heeled shoe. Then with a whoop she was at the door. The door was flung open. There was a flutter of white and a flare of crimson, neither quite in the room nor precisely in the passage. The door was slammed, and the girl gone.

Mr. Teesdale was the first to rise. His face was very pale and agitated. He crossed the room and laid a hand upon the shoulder of Mr. Appleton, who was still pounding with all his heart at the old piano. Appleton stopped and revolved on the music-stool with a face of very comical ignorance and amazement. Mr. Teesdale went on to the door and turned the handle. It did not open. The key had been turned upon the outer side.

CHAPTER XIII. – ON THE VERANDAH

Night had fallen, and Mr. Teesdale had the homestead all to himself. Arabella and her mother had accompanied the ministers to evening worship in the township chapel. John William was busy with the milking. As for Missy, she had disappeared, as well she might, after her outrageous performance in the best parlour. And Mr. Teesdale was beginning to wonder whether they were ever to see her again; and if never, then what sort of report could he send his old friend now?

He did not know. Her last prank was also incomparably her worst, it had stunned poor David, and it left him unable to think coherently of Missy any longer. Yet her own father had warned him that Miriam was a very modern type of young woman; had hinted at the possibility of her startling simple folks. Then again, David, who took his newspaper very seriously indeed, had his own opinion of modern society in England and elsewhere. And if, as he believed, Missy was a specimen of that society, then it was not right to be hard upon the specimen. Had not he gathered long ago from the newspapers that the music-hall song and dance had found their way into smart London drawing-rooms? Now that he had heard that song, and seen that dance, were they much worse than he had been led to suppose? If so, then society was even blacker than it was painted, that was all. The individual in any case was not to blame, but least of all in this case, where the individual had shown nothing but kindness to an uninteresting old man, quite aside and apart from her position in the old man’s house as the child of his earliest friend.

And yet – and yet – he would do something to blot this last lurid scene out of his mind. There was nothing he would not do, if only he could do that. Yet this only showed him the narrowness of his own mind. That, after all, was half the trouble. Here at the antipodes, in an overlooked corner that had missed development with the colony, just as Mr. Teesdale himself had missed it: here all minds must be narrow. But theirs at the farm were perhaps narrower than most; otherwise they would never have been so shocked at Missy; at all events they would not have shown their feelings, as they evidently must have shown them, to have driven poor Missy off the premises, as they had apparently done.

Mr. Teesdale became greatly depressed as he made these reflections, and gradually got as much of the blame on to his own shoulders as one man could carry. It was very dark. He was sitting out on the verandah and smoking; but it was too dark to enjoy a pipe properly, even if David could have enjoyed anything just then. He was sitting in one of those wooden chairs in which he had so often sat of late while Missy read to him, and one hand rested mournfully upon the seat of the empty chair at his side. Not that he as yet really dreaded never seeing Missy again. He was keeping a look-out for her all the time. Sooner or later she was bound to come back.

She had come back already, but it was so dark that David never saw her until he was putting a light to his second pipe. Then the face of Missy, with her red hair tousled, came out of the night beyond the verandah with startling vividness, and it was the most defiant face that ever David Tees-dale had beheld.

“Missy,” cried he, “is that you?”

He dropped the match and Missy’s face was gone.

“Yes, it’s me,” said her voice, in such a tone as might have been expected from her face.

“Then come in, child, come in,” said David joyfully, pushing back his chair as he rose. “I’m that glad you’ve come back, you can’t think!”

“But I haven’t come back – that’s just it,” answered the defiant voice out of the night.

“Then I’m going to fetch you back, Missy. I’m going – ”

“You stop in that verandah. If you come out I’ll take to my heels and you’ll never see me again – never! Now look here, Mr. Teesdale, haven’t I sickened you this time?”

“Done what, Missy?” asked David, uneasily, from the verandah. He could see her outline now.

“Sickened you. I should have thought I’d sickened you just about enough this trip, if you’d asked me. I should have said I’d choked you off for good and all.”

“You know you’ve done no such thing, Missy. What nonsense the child will talk!”

“What! I didn’t sicken you this afternoon?”

“No.”

“Didn’t disgust you, if you like that better?”

“No.”

“Didn’t make you perspire, the whole lot of you?”

“Of course you didn’t, Missy. How you talk! You amused us a good deal, and you surprised us, too, a bit; but that was all.”

“Oh! So that was all, was it? So I only surprised you a bit? I suppose you don’t happen to know whether it was a big bit, eh?”

But David now decided that the time was come for firmness.

“Listen to me, Missy; I’m not going to have any more to say to you unless you come inside at once!”

“But what if I’m not never coming inside – never no more?”

There was that within the words which made David pause to consider. At length he said: “Very well, then, come into the verandah and we’ll have a sensible talk here, and I won’t force you into the house; though where else you’re to go I don’t quite see. However, come here, and I won’t insist on your coming a step further.”

“Honour bright?”

“Of course.”

“Hope to die?”

“I don’t understand you, Missy; but I meant what I said.”

“Then I’m coming. One moment, though! Is anybody about? Is Mrs. Teesdale in the house?”

“No, she’s gone to chapel. So has Arabella, and John William’s milking. They’ll none of ‘em be back just yet. Ah, that’s better, my dear girl, that’s better!”

Missy was back in her old wooden chair. Mr. Teesdale sat down again in its fellow and put his hand affectionately upon the girl’s shoulder.

“So you mean to tell me your hairs didn’t stand on end!” said Missy, in a little whisper that was as unnecessary as it was fascinating just then.

“I haven’t got much to boast of,” answered the old man cheerily; “but what hair I have didn’t do any such thing, Missy.”

“Now just you think what you’re saying,” pursued the girl, with an air as of counsel cautioning a witness. “You tell me I neither sickened you, nor disgusted you, nor choked you off for good and all with that song and dance I gave you this afternoon. Your hairs didn’t stand on end, and I didn’t even make you perspire – so you say! But do you really mean me to believe you?”

“Why, bless the child! To be sure – to be sure!”

“Then, Mr. Teesdale, I must ask you whether you’re in the habit of telling lies.”

David opened his mouth to answer very promptly indeed, but kept it open without answering at all at the moment. He had remembered something that sent his left thumb and forefinger of their own accord into an empty waistcoat pocket. “No,” said he presently with a sigh, “I’m not exactly in the habit of saying what isn’t true.”

“But you do it sometimes?”

“I have done it, God forgive me! But who has not?”

“Not me,” cried Missy candidly. “There’s not a bigger liar in this world than me! I’m going to tell you about that directly. I’m so glad you’ve told a lie or two yourself – it gives me such a leg-up – though I never should have thought it of you, Mr. Teesdale. I’ve told hundreds since I’ve known you. Have you told any since you’ve known me?”

The question was asked with all the inquisitive sympathy of one discovering a comrade in sin. “I mean not counting the ones you’ve just been telling me,” added Missy when she got no answer, “about your not being shocked, and all the rest of it.”

“That was no falsehood, Missy; that was the truth.”

“All right, then, we’ll pass that. Have you told any other lies since I’ve been here? Just whisper, and I promise I won’t let on. I do so want to know.”

“But why, my dear – but why?”

“Because it’ll be ever so much easier for me to make my confession when you’ve made yours.”

“Your confession! What can you have to confess, Missy?” The old man chuckled as he patted her hand.

“More than you’re prepared for. But you must fire first. Have you or have you not told a wicked story since I’ve been staying here?”

Mr. Teesdale cleared his throat and sat upright in his chair.

“Missy,” said he solemnly, “the only untruth I can remember telling in all my life, I have told since you have been with us; and I’ve told it over and over again. Heaven knows why I admit this much to you! I suppose there’s something in you, my dear, that makes me say’ more than ever I mean to say. But I’m not going to say another word about this – that’s flat.”

“Good Lord!” murmured Missy. “And you’ve told it over and over and over again! Oh, do tell me,” she whispered coaxingly; “you might.”

“My dear, I’ve told you too much already.” And old Teesdale would have risen and paced the verandah, but a pair of strong arms restrained him. They were Missy’s arms thrown round his neck, and the old man was content to sit still.

“Tell me one thing,” she wheedled softly: “had it anything to do with me – that wicked story you’ve told so often?”

Mr. Teesdale was silent.

“Then it had something to do with me. Let me think. Had it anything – to do with – your watch?.. Then it had! And anything to do with that twenty pounds you sent me to the post office?.. Yes, it had! You pawned that watch to get me that money. You said you had left it mending. I’ve heard you say so a dozen times. So this is the lie you meant you’d told over and over again. And all for me! O Mr. Teesdale, I am so sorry – I am – so – sorry.”

She had broken down and was sobbing bitterly on his shoulder. The old man stroked her head.

“You needn’t take it so to heart, Missy dear. Nay, come! Shall I tell you why? Because it wasn’t all for you, Missy. I hardly knew you then. Nay, honey, it was all for your dear father – no one else.”

The effect of this distinction, made with a very touching sort of pride, was to withdraw Missy’s arms very suddenly from the old man’s neck, and to leave her sitting and trembling as far away from him as possible, though still in her chair. Her moment was come; but her nerve and her courage, her coolness and steadiness of purpose, where were they now?

She braced herself together with a powerful effort. Hours ago she had resolved, under influences that may be remembered, to undeceive the too trustful old man now at her side. To that resolve she still adhered; but as it had since become evident that nothing she could possibly do would lead him to suspect the truth, there was now no way for her but the hardest way of all – that of a full and clean confession. Her teeth were chattering when she began, but Mr. Teesdale understood her to say:

“Before you told your lie I had told you a dozen – I spoke hardly a word of truth all the way into Melbourne that day. But there was one great, big, tremendous lie at the bottom of all the rest. And can’t you guess what that was? You must guess – I can never tell you – I couldn’t get it out.”

Mr. Teesdale was very silent. “Yes, I think I can guess,” he said at last, and sadly enough.

“Then what was it?” exclaimed Missy in an eager whisper. She was shivering with excitement.

“Well, my dear, I suppose it was to do with them friends you had to meet at the theatre. You might have trusted me a bit more, Missy! I shouldn’t have thought so much of it, after all.”

“Of what?”

“Why, of your going to the theatre alone. Wasn’t that it, Missy?”

The girl moaned. “Oh, no – no! It was something ever so much worse than that.”

“Then you weren’t stopping with friends at all. Was that it? Yes, you were staying all by yourself at one of the hotels.”

“No – no – no. It was ever so much worse than that too. That was one of the lies I told you, but it was nothing like the one I mean.”

“Missy,” old David said gravely, “I don’t want to know what you mean. I don’t indeed! I’d far rather know nothing at all about it.”

“But you must know!” cried Missy in desperation.

“Why must I?”

“Because this has gone on far too long. And I never meant it to go on at all. No, I give you my oath I only meant to have a lark in the beginning – to have a lark and be done with it! Anyhow I can’t keep it up any longer; that’s all about it, and – but surely you can guess now, Mr. Teesdale, can’t you?”

Again the old man was long in answering. “Yes,” he exclaimed at length, and with such conviction in his voice that Missy grasped her chair-arms tight and sat holding her breath. “Yes, I do see now. You borrowed that money not because you really needed it, but because – ”

The girl’s groans stopped him. “To think that you can’t guess,” she wailed, “though I’ve as good as told you in so many words!”

“No, I can’t guess,” answered David decisively. “What’s more, I don’t want to. So I give it up. Hush, Missy, not another word! I won’t have it! I’ll put my fingers in my ears if you will persist. I don’t care whether it’s true or whether it isn’t, I’m not going to sit here and listen to you pitching into yourself when – when – ”

“When what?”

“Why, when I’ve grown that fond of you, my dear!”

“And are you fond of me?” said Missy, in a softened voice that quivered badly. She put her arms once more round the old man’s neck, and let her tousled head rest again upon his shoulder. “Are you really so fond of me as all that?”

“My dear, we all are. You know that as well as I do.”

Missy made one important exception in her own mind, but not aloud. Kind, worn fingers were now busy with her hair, now patting her shoulder tenderly; and in all her poor life Missy had never known a father or a father’s love. Even with the will she could not have spoken for some minutes. When she did speak next it was to echo the old man’s last words; “Yes, I know that as well as you do. And I know how it hurts! But tell me, can you possibly be as fond of me after this afternoon?”

“I can,” said old Teesdale. “I can only speak for myself. Maybe I think more of you than anyone else does; I’ve seen more of you, and had more of your kindness. Nothing could make me forget that, Missy – how you’ve sat with me, and walked with me, and read to me, and taken notice of the old man, no matter who else was by or who wasn’t. No, I could never forget all that, my dear; nothing that you could do could make me forget one half of that!”

“And nothing that I have done?”

“Still less anything that you have done.”

“But if you found out that I’d been deceiving you all along, and obtained every mortal thing on false pretences, and taken the filthiest advantage of your kindness – surely that would wipe out any little good turns which anybody would have done you? Of course it would!”

“It might. But anybody wouldn’t have done ‘em —anybody wouldn’t,” the old man said, leaving a kiss upon the hair between his fingers. “At all events, Missy, there’s one thing that nothing could blot out; for whatever you did, you’d still be your dear father’s daughter!”

Very slowly and deliberately, Missy unwound her arms and lifted her head, and got out of the chair, and stood to her full height in the dark verandah.

“That’s just it,” she said calmly, distinctly. “That’s just what I was coming to.”

But Mr. Teesdale had also risen, and he was not listening to Missy. For footsteps were drawing near through the grass – footsteps and the rustle of stiff Sunday gowns, and the creaking of comfortless Sunday boots – and a harsh voice was crying more harshly than was even its wont:

“Is that you, David? And is that Miriam beside you? And how dare she come back and show her face, I wonder? Ay, that’s what I want to know!”

David ran to meet and expostulate with his harder half. It was seldom that he even tried to quell that outspoken tongue; but now he both tried and succeeded, though Missy in the verandah could not hear by how much artifice or in what words. In another minute, however, Mr. Teesdale was again at her side, while his wife and daughter went past them and into the house without further parley.

These few words were then exchanged in the verandah:

“Missy, she didn’t mean it. You’ll hear no more about it – not a word from anybody.”

“I deserve to, nevertheless.”

“So you’ll come in, won’t you, and have your supper like a dear good girl?”

“Ah, yes, I’ll come in now.”

“I was so afraid – Mrs. T. is that hasty and plain-spoken – that what she said might make you say you’d never come into our house any more.”

“Not it,” said Missy with a laugh. “That’s the sort of thing to have the very opposite effect upon you. Come on in!”

CHAPTER XIV. – A BOLT FROM THE BLUE

Mr. Teesdale sat at his end of the old green tablecloth, reading a singularly unseasonable communication from that middle-man who bought the milk but was never in a position to pay for it. The time was half-past eleven in the forenoon of Boxing Day, and the daily delivery of letters had just taken place. It was naturally a little later than usual, but Mr. Teesdale wished with all his heart that there had been no delivery at all. At length he raised a tired face from his bad news, and let his eyes rest for the comfort of his spirit upon the red head and fringe of his solitary companion in the parlour. Missy was seated on the sofa, and all of her but the top of her head and the bottom of her dress, with a finger or two of each hand, was hidden behind the Argus newspaper. Missy always liked to see the Argus as soon as it came, though by that time it was never less than a day old, because Mr. Teesdale had it from a friend when the friend was done with it. This morning, as usual, he had handed it to the girl before opening his letters. He now sat staring absently at the girl’s hair, and was therefore somewhat slow to notice that the narrow strip of forehead under the fringe was gone so white that it was difficult to tell where paper ended and forehead began. No sooner had David seen this, however, than he saw also the paper jumping up and down in the girl’s grasp; whereupon the unpleasant letter in his own hands went straightway out of his head.

“Missy,” he cried, “what’s the matter, my dear? What have you seen?”

Missy dashed down the paper and was on her feet in an instant. There was extraordinary spirit in the action, and her eyes were very bright.