Part 15 (1/2)
”Hold your tongue or I'll pull your ears!” exclaimed Aunt Charlotte, scarlet with confusion. ”You'll make me sorry I ever said anything to you on the subject. Mr Ogilvie, as far as I can judge from his letter, is a most polished gentleman. There's a quaint, old-world courtesy about him which one scarcely ever meets with at the present day. Just remember, if you please, that we're simply two old friends, who are going to meet again after having lost sight of each other for five-and-twenty years; and what there is to laugh about in that I entirely fail to see.”
”Dear auntie, I won't laugh any more, I promise you,” said Austin.
”I'm sure he'll turn out a most courtly old personage, and perhaps he'll have an enormous fortune that he made by shaking paG.o.da-trees in India. How do paG.o.das grow on trees, I wonder? I always thought a paG.o.da was a sort of odalisque--isn't that right? Oh, I mean obelisk--with beautiful flounces all the way up to the top. It seems a funny way of making money, doesn't it. Where is India, by the bye?
Anywhere near Peru?”
”Your ignorance is positively disgraceful, Austin,” said Aunt Charlotte, with great severity. ”I only hope you won't talk like that in the presence of Mr Ogilvie. I expect you're right in surmising that he's been a great traveller, for he says himself that he has led a very wandering, restless life, and he would be shocked to think I had a nephew who didn't know how to find India upon the map. There, you've had quite as many cherries as are good for you, I'm sure. Let us go and see if it's dry enough to have our coffee on the lawn, while Martha clears away.”
Now although Austin was intensely tickled at the idea of Aunt Charlotte having had a love-affair, and a love-affair that appeared to threaten renewal, the fact was that he really felt just a little anxious. Not that he believed for a moment that she would be such a goose as to marry, at her age; that, he a.s.sured himself, was impossible. But it is often the very things we tell ourselves are impossible that we fear the most, and Austin, in spite of his curiosity to see his aunt's old flame, looked forward to his arrival with just a little apprehension. For some reason or other, he considered himself partly responsible for Aunt Charlotte. The poor lady had so many limitations, she was so hopelessly impervious to a joke, her views were so stereotyped and conventional--in a word, she was so terribly Early Victorian, that there was no knowing how she might be taken in and done for if he did not look after her a bit. But how to do it was the difficulty. Certainly he could not prevent the elderly swain from calling, and, of course, it would be only proper that he himself should be absent when the two first came together. A _tete-a-tete_ between them was inevitable, and was not likely to be decisive. But, this once over, he would appear upon the scene, take stock of the aspirant, and shape his policy accordingly. What sort of a man, he wondered, could Mr Ogilvie be? He had actually pa.s.sed through the town not so very long ago; but then so had hundreds of strangers, and Austin had never noticed anyone in particular--certainly no one who was in the least likely to be the gentleman in question. There was nothing to be done, meanwhile, then, but to wait and watch. Perhaps the gentleman would not want to marry Aunt Charlotte after all. Perhaps, as she herself had suggested, he had a wife and family already. Neither of them knew anything at all about him. He might be a battered old traveller, or an Anglo-Indian nabob, or a needy haunter of Continental pensions, or a convict just emerged from a term of penal servitude. He might be as rich as Midas, or as poor as a church-mouse. But on one thing Austin was determined--Aunt Charlotte must be saved from herself, if necessary. They wanted no interloper in their peaceful home. And he, Austin, would go forth into the world, wooden leg and all, rather than submit to be saddled with a step-uncle.
As for Aunt Charlotte, she, too, deemed it beyond the dreams of possibility that she would ever marry. In fact, it was only Austin's nonsense that had put so ridiculous a notion into her head. It was true that, in the years gone by, the attentions of young Granville Ogilvie had occasioned her heart a flutter. Perhaps some faint, far-off reverberation of that flutter was making itself felt in her heart now. It is so, no doubt, with many maiden ladies when they look back upon the past. But if she had ever felt a little sore at her sudden abandonment by the mercurial young man who had once touched her fancy, the tiny scratch had healed and been forgotten long ago. At the same time, although the idea of marriage after five-and-twenty years was too absurd to be dwelt on for a moment, the worthy lady could not help feeling how delightful it would be to be _asked_. Of course, that would involve the extremely painful process of refusing; and Aunt Charlotte, in spite of her rough tongue, was a merciful woman, and never willingly inflicted suffering upon anybody. Even blackbeetles, as she often told herself, were G.o.d's creatures, and Mr Ogilvie, although he had deserted her, no doubt had finer sensibilities than a blackbeetle. So she did not wish to hurt him if she could avoid it; still, a proposal of marriage at the age of forty-seven would be rather a feather in her cap, and she was too true a woman to be indifferent to that coveted decoration. But then, once more, it was quite possible that he would not propose at all.
The next morning Austin put on his straw hat, and went and sat down by the old stone fountain in the full blaze of the sun, as was his custom. Lubin was somewhere in the shrubbery, and, unaware that anyone was within hearing, was warbling l.u.s.tily to himself. Austin immediately p.r.i.c.ked up his ears, for he had had no idea that Lubin was a vocalist. Away he carolled blithely enough, in a rough but not unmusical voice, and Austin was just able to catch some of the words of the quaint old west-country ballad that he was singing.
”Welcome to town, Tom Dove, Tom Dove, The merriest man alive, Thy company still we love, we love, G.o.d grant thee still to thrive.
And never will we, depart from thee, For better or worse, my joy!
For thou shalt still, have our good will, G.o.d's blessing on my sweet boy.”
”Bravo, Lubin!” cried Austin, clapping his hands. ”You do sing beautifully. And what a delightful old song! Where did you pick it up?”
”Eh, Master Austin,” said Lubin, emerging from among the rhododendrons, ”if I'd known you was a-listening I'd 'a faked up something from a French opera for you. Why, that's an old song as I've known ever since I was that high--'Tom of Exeter' they calls it. It's a rare favourite wi' the maids down in the parts I come from.”
”Shows their good taste,” said Austin. ”It's awfully pretty. Who was Tom Dove, and why did he come to town?”
”Nay, I can't tell,” replied Lubin. ”Tis some made-up tale, I doubt.
They do say as how he was a tailor. But there is folks as'll say anything, you know.”
”A tailor!” exclaimed Austin, scornfully, ”That I'm sure he wasn't.
But oh, Lubin, there _is_ somebody coming to town in a day or two--somebody I want to find out about. Do you often go into the town?”
”Eh, well, just o' times; when there's anything to take me there,”
answered Lubin, vaguely. ”On market-days, every now and again.”
”Oh yes, I know, when you go and sell ducks,” put in Austin. ”Now what I want to know is this. Have you, within the last three or four weeks, seen a stranger anywhere about?”
”A stranger?” repeated Lubin. ”Ay, that I certainly have. Any amount o' strangers.”
”Oh well, yes, of course, how stupid of me!” exclaimed Austin, impatiently. ”There must have been scores and scores. But I mean a particular stranger--a certain person in particular, if you understand me. Anybody whose appearance struck you in any way.”
”Well, but what sort of a stranger?” asked Lubin. ”Can't you tell me anything about him? What'd he look like, now?”
”That's just what I want to find out,” replied Austin. ”If I could describe him I shouldn't want you to. All I know is that he's a sort of elderly gentleman, rather more than fifty. He may be fifty-five, or getting on for sixty. Now, isn't that near enough? Oh--and I'm almost sure that he's a traveller.”
”H'm,” pondered Lubin, leaning on his broom reflectively. ”Well, yes, I did see a sort of elderly gentleman some three or four weeks ago, standing at the bar o' the 'Coach-and-Horses.' What his age might be I couldn't exactly say, 'cause he was having a drink with his back turned to the door. But he was a traveller, that I know.”
”A traveller? I wonder whether that was the one!” exclaimed Austin.
”Had he a dark-brown face? Or a wooden leg? Or a scar down one of his cheeks?”
”Not as I see,” answered Lubin, beginning to sweep the lawn. ”But a traveller he was, because the barmaid told me so. Travelled all over the country in bonnets.”