What Necessity Knows - Lily Dougall (readera ebook reader txt) 📗

with you, Mr. Trenholme?"

He wished for several reasons that she would cease her banter, and he had another subject to advance, which he now brought forward abruptly. "I don't know, Miss Rexford, what right I have to think you will take any interest in what interests me, but, after what happened last night, I can't help telling you that I've got to the bottom of that puzzle, and I'm afraid it will prove a very serious matter for my poor friend Bates."

"What is it?" she cried, his latest audacity forgotten.

"Just now, as I came out of the village, I met the person I saw in the Harmon house, and the same I saw before, the time I told you of. It was a woman--a young woman dressed in silk. I don't know what she may be doing here, but I know now _who_ she must be. She must be Sissy Cameron. No other girl could have been at Turrifs Station the night I saw her there. She _is_ Sissy Cameron." (His voice grew fiercer.) "She must have turned her father's hearse into a vehicle for her own tricks; and what's more, she must, with the most deliberate cruelty, have kept the knowledge of her safety from poor Bates all these months."

"Stay, stay!" cried Sophia, for his voice had grown so full of anger against the girl that he could hardly pour out the tale of her guilt fast enough. "Where did you meet her? What was she like?"

"I met her ten minutes ago, walking on this road. She was a great big buxom girl, with a white face and red hair; perhaps people might call her handsome. I pulled up and stared at her, but she went on as if she didn't see me. Now I'm going in to tell Bates, and then I shall go back and bring her to book. I don't know what she may be up to in Chellaston, but she must be found."

"Many people do think her handsome, Mr. Trenholme," said Sophia, for she knew now who it was; "and she is certainly not--the sort of--"

"Do you mean to say you know her?"

"Yes, I know her quite well. I had something to do with bringing her to Chellaston. I never knew till this moment that she was the girl you and Mr. Bates have been seeking, and indeed--" She stopped, confused, for, although it had flashed on her for the first time that what she knew of Eliza's history tallied with his story, she could not make it all match, and then she perceived that no doubt it was in the Harmon house that Eliza had so faithfully sought the letters now held in her own hand. "Really," she continued, "you mustn't go to work with this girl in the summary manner you suggest. I know her too well to think anything could be gained by that. She is, in a sense, a friend of mine."

"Don't say she is a _friend_ of yours--_don't!_" he said, with almost disgust in his tone.

They had halted in the lane just outside the yard gate, and now he put down the pail and turned his back on the still shut gate to speak with more freedom. As he talked, the brisk air dashed about the boughs of the spindling lilac hedge, shaking slant sunbeams upon the unpainted gate and upon the young man and woman in front of it.

Then, but in a way that was graphic because of strong feeling, Alec Trenholme told the more real part of the story which he had outlined the night before; told of the melancholy solitude in which Bates had been left with the helpless old woman in a house that was bewitched in the eyes of all, so that no servant or labourer would come near it. In talk that was a loose mosaic of detail and generalisation, he told of the woman's work to which the proud Scotchman had been reduced in care of the aunt who in his infancy had cared for him, and how he strove to keep the house tidy for her because she fretted when she saw housework ill-done. He explained that Bates would have been reduced to hard straits for want of the yearly income from his lumber had not he himself "chanced" to go and help him. He said that Bates had gone through all this without complaint, without even counting it hard, because of the grief he counted so much worse--the loss of the girl, and the belief that she had perished because of his unkindness.

"For he _loved_ her, Miss Rexford. He had never had anyone else to care for, and he had just centred his whole heart on her. He cared for her as if she had been his daughter and sister, and--and he cared for her in another way that was more than all. It was a lonely enough place; no one could blame a woman for wanting to leave it; but to leave a man to think her dead when he loved her!"

Sophia was touched by the story and touched nearly also by the heart of the man who told it, for in such telling the hearts of speaker and listener beat against one another through finer medium than that which we call space. But just because she was touched it was characteristic in her to find a point that she could assail.

"I don't see that a woman is specially beholden to a man because he loves her against her will."

"Do you mean to say"--fiercely--"that she was not beholden to him because he taught her everything she knew, and was willing to work to support her?"

"Yes, certainly, she was under obligation for all his kindness, but his being in love with her--that is different."

But Alec Trenholme, like many people, could not see a fine point in the heat of discussion. Afterwards, on reflection he saw what she had meant, but now he only acted in the most unreasonable of ways.

"Well, I don't see it as you do," he said; and then, the picture of suppressed indignation, he took up the pail to go inside and dispose of it.

"I don't know how it can all be," said Sophia considering, "but I'm sure there's a great deal of good in her."

At this, further silence, even out of deference to her, seemed to him inadequate. "I don't pretend to know how it can be; how she got here, or what she has been doing here, dressed in silk finery, or what she may have been masquerading with matches in the old house over there for. All I know is, a girl who treated Bates as she did--"

"No, you don't know any of these things. You have only heard one side of the story. It is not fair to judge."

"She has ruined his life, done as good as killed him. Why should you take her part?"

"Because there are always two sides to everything. I don't know much of her story, but I have heard some of it, and it didn't sound like what you have said. As to her being in the Harmon house--" Sophia stopped.

"Do you mean to say," asked Alec, "that she has been living here all the time quite openly?"

"Yes--that is, she has given a false name, it seems, but, Mr. Trenholme--"

"If she has lied about her name, depend upon it she has lied about everything else. I wouldn't want you to go within ten feet of her."

Although the fallacy of such argument as Alec's too often remains undetected when no stubborn fact arises to support justice, Sophia, with her knowledge of Eliza, could not fail to see the absurdity of it. Her mind was dismayed at the thought of what the girl had apparently done and concealed, but nothing could make her doubt that the Eliza she knew was different from the Sissy Cameron he was depicting. She did not doubt, either, that if anything would bring out all the worst in her and make her a thousand times more unkind to Bates, it would be the attack Alec Trenholme meditated. She decided that she ought herself to act as go-between. She remembered the scorn with which the patronage of a vulgar woman had that evening been discarded, and whether Eliza herself knew it or not, Sophia knew that this nicety of taste was due chiefly to her own influence. The subtle flattery of this pleaded with her now on the girl's behalf: and perceiving that Alec Trenholme was not amenable to reason, she, like a good woman, condescended to coax him for reason's sake. To a woman the art of managing men is much like the art of skating or swimming, however long it may lie in disuse, the trick, once learnt, is there to command. The milk, it seemed, must be taken down the cellar steps and poured into pans. Then a draught of milk off the ice was given to him. Then, it appeared, she must return to the pasture, and on their way she pointed out the flowers that she had planted, and let him break one that he admired.

When they reached the field Sophia proffered her request, which was, that he would leave his discovery in her hands for one day, for one day only, she pleaded. She added that he might come to see her the next afternoon, and she would tell him what explanation Eliza had to give, and in what mood she would meet her unfortunate guardian.

And Sophia's request was granted, granted with that whole-hearted allegiance and entire docility, with a tenderness of eye and lightsomeness of demeanour, that made her perceive that this young man had not been so obdurate as he appeared, and that her efforts to appease him had been out of proportion to what was required.

When he mounted his horse and rode off unmindful of the last pail of milk, for indeed his head was a little turned, Sophia was left standing by the pasture gate feeling unpleasantly conscious of her own handsome face and accomplished manner. If she felt amused that he should show himself so susceptible, she also felt ashamed, she hardly knew why. She remembered that in his eyes on a previous occasion which she had taken as a signal for alarm on her part, and wondered why she had not remembered it sooner. The thing was done now: she had petted and cajoled him, and she felt no doubt that masculine conceit would render him blind to her true motive. Henceforth he would suppose that she encouraged his fancy. Sophia, who liked to have all things her own way, felt disconcerted.


CHAPTER XI.

After tea Sophia took Blue and Red apart into their little bedroom. An old cotton blind was pulled down to shield the low window from passers in the yard. The pane was open and the blind flapped. The room had little ornament and was unattractive.

"How could you write letters to that Mr. Harkness?" asked Sophia, trying to be patient.

"We didn't--exactly," said Blue, "but how did you know?"

"At least--we did," said Red, "but only notes. What have you heard, Sister Sophia? Has he"--anxiously--"written to papa?"

"Written to papa!" repeated Sophia in scorn. "What should he do that for?"

"I don't know," said Red, more dejected. "It's"--a little pause--"it's the sort of thing they do."

Sophia drew in her breath with an effort not to laugh, and managed to sigh instead. "I think you are the silliest girls of your age!"

"Well, I don't care," cried Blue, falling from bashfulness into