The Honorable Miss: A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town

  CHAPTER XIII.

  THE WHITE BOAT AND THE GREEN.

  About a fortnight after the events mentioned in the last chapter, thelandlady of the Blue Lion, the little slatternly village inn where Mr.Hart and his granddaughter had their quarters, was somewhatdisappointed, somewhat puzzled, and certainly possessed by the demon ofcuriosity when Hart told her that he and his granddaughter intended totake their departure that evening. Hart often went away; Mrs. Timms wasquite accustomed to his sudden exits, but his granddaughter was alwaysleft as a hostage behind. Hart with his queer ways, his erraticpayments, was perhaps not the most inviting lodger for an honestlandlady to count upon, but Mrs. Timms had grown accustomed to him. Shescolded him, and grumbled at him, but on the whole she made a good thingout of him, for no one could be more generous than old Hart when he wasat 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 MissJosephine 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 asingle first-class passenger--a girl dressed in a long gray cloak, and abig, picturesque shady hat stepped on to the platform. She was the onlypassenger to alight at Northbury, and the one or two sleepy portersregarded her with interest and admiration. She was very graceful, andher light-colored eyes had a peculiar quick expression which made peopleturn to watch her again.

  The strange girl had scarcely any luggage--only a small portmanteaucovered 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 shakyand ghastly-looking conveyance which Loftus Bertram had been too proudto use; sprang lightly into it, desired the porter to put her luggage onthe roof, and gave the address of Rosendale Manor.

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

  The other laughed.

  "She have got an eye," he said. "My word, don't it shine? Seems toscorch 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 itbefore. Very travel-stained and weary she had been then; very fresh andkeen, and all alive she felt now.

  She threw open the windows of the close cab, and took a long breath ofthe 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 thentravelled 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 knewanything of the ways of Northbury expected to see the good folk in thestreets on an evening like this. No, the water was their highway, thewater was their pleasure-scene. Each house owned a boat, each gardenended in steps against which the said boat was moored. It was thetiniest walk from the supper room or the high tea-table to the littlegreen-painted boat, and then away to float over the limpid waves.

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

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

  "Do look at Davis's cab!" exclaimed Matty. "Look, Captain Bertram, it'sgoing 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 thatdirection. Do look, Captain Bertram."

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

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

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

  "Oh, really! A cab _is_ an interesting sight, particularly aNorthbury 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'sark?"

  Matty went off into her usual half-hysterical laughter.

  "Oh! I do declare, Captain Bertram, you are too killingly clever foranything," she responded. "Oh, my poor side--I'll die if I laugh anymore. 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 oncehave found a shelter within that place of refuge."

  "Oh! oh! oh! I am taken with such a stitch when I laugh. You are toowitty, 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 itmore decorous to turn her back on the pair.

  "Does not that green boat belong to Miss Meadowsweet?" interruptedBertram. "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 hopingthat Mrs. Bell would unconsciously steer in that direction; she wasgoing the other way, however, and he was obliged to speak.)

  "Yes, that's Beatrice," said Matty, in an indifferent tone. "Shegenerally 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 ofgirl. Don't you want to talk to her? I know you do. I see it in yourface. You think it will be irksome for me, but, never mind, we need notstay long. I must not be selfish nor indulge in the wish to keep you allto myself. I know you want to talk to Miss Meadowsweet, and so youshall,--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 thecaptain had managed to put the matter in such a light that she couldonly 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 hada sensation of feeling rather flat.

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

  Matty had over and over pronounced him to be the most brilliantly wittyperson she had ever in the whole course of her life encountered. But histalent as a supposed wit was nothing at all to the cleverness with whichhe now managed to keep the large white boat by the side of the smallgreen one for the remainder of the evening. It was entirely managed bythe superior will of one person, for certainly none of the Bells wishedfor 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 whomshe hoped was soon about to take flight from the parent nest, saw at aglance
that her chick looked nothing at all beside that superior chickenof Mrs. Meadowsweet's. For Matty's little nose was sadly burnt, and onelock of her thin limp hair was flying not too picturesquely in thebreeze. And her home-cut jacket was by no means remarkably becoming, andone of her small, uncovered hands--why _would_ Matty take hergloves off?--was burnt red, not brown by the sun. Beatrice, on thecontrary, looked as she always did, trim and neat, and bright andgracious. She had on the gray cashmere dress which she had worn whenCaptain Bertram first began to lose his heart to her, and over this,tonight, she had twisted a long bright crimson scarf. Into her whitehat, 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 herfigure fine, but when, in addition, there was a sweet intelligent facewithout one scrap of self-consciousness about it, and two gray eyes fullof a tender and sympathetic light, and when the rosy lips only opened tomake the pleasantest and most appropriate speeches, and only to giveutterance to words of tact and kindness, Mrs. Bell was not very farwrong when she felt a sense of uneasiness for her own poor chick.

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

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

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

  "It's getting quite chill," suddenly exclaimed Mrs. Bell. "Girls, it'stime 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, butyou're such a daughter--one in a thousand. I assure you, CaptainBertram, I can hardly ever get that girl to leave her mother alone inthe evening."

  Beatrice laughed.

  "It so happens," she said, "that my mother is having tea and supperto-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, neverto her dying day, that on a certain memorable occasion, good-humored,fat, pompous Mrs. Bell would have given half a sovereign to box herears. The astute captain, however, guessed her feelings, and chuckledinwardly. He had also found out during his brief morning's conversationthat Mrs. Meadowsweet was going to sup from home.

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

  Their glance caused her to start and blush.

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

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

  "Poor man! He is over head and ears in love," she murmured. "I supposehe thinks Beatrice will play gooseberry with the other girls, and leavehim more chance to be alone with little Matty. She does _not_ lookher 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, dearme, it reminds me of the time when I was young, and Bell used to go onhis 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'llhelp him, so I will. I'll take Beatrice and the other girls away whenonce 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 consultinghow Matty's new dress is to be made, so the two poor things can have thedrawing-room to themselves. I shouldn't be a bit surprised if he poppedthere and then. Well, I am gratified. Bertram is a pretty name--MatildaBertram! She won't like to be known as Matty, then. 'Mrs. CaptainBertram'--it sounds very stylish. I wonder how much money pa will allowfor the trousseau. And how am I to manage about the breakfast? None ofour rooms are big, and all the town's people will want to be asked. Itisn't for me to turn my back on old friends; but I doubt if the Bertramswill like to meet every one, of course, they are the first to beconsidered. 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 inthe 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, andmy legs are always a little unsteady in a boat. Oh, not you, CaptainBertram, I beg, I pray. You just go on with Matty to the house, andwe'll follow presently. Go on like a good man, and don't botheryourself."

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

  "I don't want to keep him back," she said, in a broad whisper to theyoung lady, who was helping her to alight on the steps. "He's over headand ears, and I thought we would give them their chance. You stay closeto me, lovey. What a fine strong arm you have! There! Alice hasn't a bitof gumption--as if Matty wanted Alice to walk with her! Alice, come backand help your mother. I'm quite giddy from the motion of the water. Comeback, child, I say!"

  But it was not Alice who turned. Captain Bertram, with the most graciousgallantry, proffered his arm to the fat old lady, and while he helpedher to the house looked again and again at Beatrice.