The Laurel Walk

Mr Milne started to his feet half involuntarily.

And – “He has been expecting this summons,” thought Frances.

“I am afraid,” he said, turning to his hostess apologetically, “I am afraid I must not allow myself to enjoy a cup of your excellent tea, for that must be Mr Littlewood. He’s been looking round the place with the bailiff this afternoon, and we arranged that he should call for me here, as we have a good deal of business before us this evening; so may I ask you to excuse – ”

“By no means,” said Mr Morion in a tone of unwonted heartiness. “We can’t think of excusing you, Milne. On the contrary, can you not ask Mr Littlewood to join us? A few moments’ delay in tackling your business cannot possibly signify.”

The three pairs of ears could scarcely credit what they heard, the three pairs of eyes exchanged furtive glances, while Lady Emma murmured something vaguely civil by way of endorsement of her husband’s proposal.

It was the lawyer who hesitated. To tell the truth, knowing the peculiarities of his present host as he did, he had been feeling during the last quarter of an hour somewhat nervous, and he now devoutly wished that he had not suggested Mr Littlewood’s calling for him at Fir Cottage, seeing that his talk with Mr Morion had been so much longer than he had anticipated.

“I should not have let myself be persuaded to come in to tea,” he thought, “and then I could have met Littlewood just outside.”

And now his misgivings, thanks to Mr Morion’s unusual amiability, turned in the other direction.

“Ten to one,” so his inner reflections ran on, “Littlewood will be annoyed at being asked to come in.” For by way of precautionary excuse for any possible surliness on the part of the representative Morion of the neighbourhood, should he and the stranger come across each other, poor Mr Milne had thought it politic to describe Fir Cottage and its inmates in no very attractive terms.

“I think, perhaps,” he began aloud, addressing his hostess, and rising as he spoke, “I think perhaps I had better not suggest Mr Littlewood’s joining us, though I shall take care to convey to him your kind wish that he should do so. I have been decoyed,” with a smile in his host’s direction, “into staying an unwarrantable time already, and as I must positively return to town to-morrow morning, I have really a good deal of work to get through to-night.”

Lady Emma would have yielded the point, and was beginning to say something to that effect, when her husband interrupted her. Mr Morion was nothing if not obstinate, and now that the fiat had gone forth that the stranger was to be admitted, enter he must at all costs.

“Nonsense, my good sir,” he said, in what for him was a tone of light jocularity. “There now! I hear them answering the door and your friend inquiring for you. Just ask him to come in,” and he opened the drawing-room door as he spoke. “I’ll step out with you myself.”

There was no longer any getting out of it for Mr Milne. He hurried forward with the intention of an explanatory word or two with Mr Littlewood, but in this he literally reckoned without his host, for Mr Morion was at his heels, and there was nothing for it but a formal introduction on the spot.

“Pray, come in,” said Mr Morion; “we are just having tea. My wife and daughters are in the drawing-room,” he said, with a wave of his hand in that direction, “and Mr Milne always pays us a visit when he comes down.”

The newcomer glanced at the lawyer in some surprise. This was scarcely the boorish hermit who had been described to him. All the same, he was not desirous of embarrassing himself with the acquaintanceship of this family, whose very existence he had almost ignored, or at least forgotten, till Mr Milne took occasion to refer to them.

But the afternoon was drawing in to evening; it was raw and chilly outside, and disagreeably draughty in the doorway where he stood, and the prospect of a hot cup of tea was not without its attraction.

“Thanks, many thanks,” he said. “We haven’t long to spare, but I should be sorry to hurry Milne,” and so saying he entered the little hall.

In the drawing-room, meantime, the suppressed excitement of the two younger of its four inmates was increasing momentarily, Eira, indeed, being so far carried away by it as to approach the half-open door, or doorway, so as to lose no word of the colloquy taking place outside.

“Betty! Frances!” she exclaimed, though in a whisper, her cheeks growing momentarily pinker, “he’s coming in! I do believe he’s coming in, and his voice doesn’t sound as if he were old at all. He’s tall, too, and” – with another furtive jerk of her head – “as far as I can see, I do believe he’s very good-looking.”

Frances was springing forward with uplifted finger, in dismay at Eira’s behaviour, when for once, to her relief, her mother took the matter out of her hands.

“Eira,” she said quickly, so that, even if her voice had been overheard by those outside, no chiding tone could have been suspected, “Eira, I am really ashamed of you. Sit down quietly and take your tea.”

Eira obeyed without a word, feeling, in point of fact, rather small; so no signs of agitation were discernible in the little group as the door was thrown open more widely to admit of Mr Morion ushering in his guests, the stranger naturally first.

“I have persuaded Mr Littlewood to join us for a few moments,” said the master of the house, as he introduced him to his wife. “Frances, another cup of tea, if you please.” And Betty quietly rang the bell as he spoke, returning immediately to her seat near the large table, on which was placed a lamp.

Mr Littlewood glanced at her, and then at her sisters, without appearing to do so.

“Milne has not much power of description,” he thought to himself; “if they were decently dressed they would not be bad-looking girls; indeed,” – and for a moment his glance reverted to Betty.

He would have been quite ready to open a conversation with her or with any of them, but, humiliating as it is to confess it, both the younger girls were by this time consumed by an agony of shyness. It was to Frances as she handed him some tea that he addressed his first observation – some triviality about the weather, to which she replied with perfect self-possession, taking the first opportunity of drawing her mother into the conversation, for such a thing as independent action on the part of even the eldest daughter would certainly have been treated by her parents as a most heinous offence.

By degrees Betty and Eira gained courage enough to glance at the stranger, now that his attention was taken up by their mother and sister.

He was young and – yes – he was decidedly good-looking. Rather fair than dark, with something winning and ingratiating about his whole manner and bearing, in spite of the decided tone and air of complete self-possession, if not self-confidence – almost amounting to lordly indifference to the effect he might produce on others.

As in duty bound, Mr Littlewood responded at once to Lady Emma’s first remark – some commonplace inquiry as to whether this was his first visit to that part of the country.

“Yes,” he replied, “practically so, though my mother informs me that as children we spent some months in this neighbourhood, but I don’t remember it. That’s to say, I remember nothing of the country, though I do recollect the house and garden, which seemed to me all that was charming and beautiful – and mysterious too. The garden was skirted by a wood, fascinating yet alarming. Children’s memories are queer things.”

“Do you think it was near here?” said Frances, “anywhere about Craig Bay? If so, it would be interesting to revisit it.”

Betty and Eira glanced at her in mute admiration. How could she have the courage to address this exceedingly smart personage with such ease and self-possession? Nor did the manner of his reply diminish their wonder. He seemed to look at Frances as if he had not seen her before, though at the same time no one could possibly have accused him of the slightest touch of discourtesy.

“I haven’t the vaguest idea,” he said, “and there would be small chance of my recognising the place if I did see it.”

“How does Craig-Morion strike you?” asked Lady Emma, and the well-bred indifference of her tone was greatly appreciated by Betty and Eira, who by this time had labelled the newcomer as “horridly stuck-up and affected.”

“Craig-Morion?” he repeated. “Oh, I think it may serve our purpose very well for the time. Of course it should have a complete overhauling, but Morion doesn’t think it worth while to do much to it, and, substantially speaking, it’s not in bad repair. I think, however, I shall be able to report sufficiently well of it to make my sisters – or sister more probably – come down to see it for themselves.”

Even Lady Emma was slightly nettled at his tone of half-contemptuous approval of the place which to the family at Fir Cottage represented so much.

“It is a pity,” she said, speaking more stiffly than before, “that the head of the family should never live at what was – is – really their original home.”

Mr Littlewood raised his eyebrows.

“Why should he?” he said carelessly; “he’s got everything in the world he wants at Witham-Meldon and at his Scotch place. He’d feel this awfully out-of-the-world.”

This last speech was too much for the feelings of one person in the company. Shyness disappeared in indignation, and, to the utter amazement of her audience, Betty’s voice, pitched in a higher key than usual, broke the silence.

“I think,” she said, while a red spot glowed on each cheek, “I think it’s a perfect shame and utterly unfair that any one should own a place which they never care to see; and of course it is actually unfair, as everybody knows it should be ours!”

“Betty?” murmured Eira, as if she thought her sister had taken leave of her senses.

“Betty!” repeated Lady Emma and Frances in varying tones of amazement and reproof, while Mr Morion and the lawyer abruptly stopped talking, as they turned round to see what in the world was happening.

Only Mr Littlewood smiled, as he might have done with amusement at a sudden outburst from a silly child, which stung her still more; and without vouchsafing another word, she rose quickly and left the room, followed by the stranger’s eyes, while an expression half of perplexity, half of concern, overspread his face.

“I am afraid,” he began, somewhat ruefully, though the smile still lingered, “I am afraid I have unwittingly annoyed the – the young lady – your sister, I suppose?” he added to Frances, who had half started up with the instinctive wish to put things somehow to rights.

“Oh, no,” she said, half nervously, far more afraid of the parental displeasure than caring for what the stranger might think. After all, his face was pleasant and kindly, and how could he know what the very name of Craig-Morion meant to them? “Oh, no, it won’t matter at all. We are terribly stay-at-home people, you see, and Craig-Morion seems a sort of earthly Paradise to us!”

“Nonsense, Frances!” said her father harshly. “Betty is a foolish, spoilt child, and must be treated accordingly. Don’t give another thought to it, Mr Littlewood.”

The young man murmured something intended to be gracious, indeed apologetic, though his words were not clearly heard, and then with a feeling of relief he turned to Frances with an instinct that here was the peace-maker.

“You will tell her how sorry I am,” he said in a low voice, for the vision of Betty’s troubled little face as she passed him in her swift transit across the room was not to be quickly banished from his mind’s eye.

Frances nodded slightly with a smile, Lady Emma’s attention being by this time happily distracted by some tactful observation from Mr Milne, who, to confess the truth, was not a little amused by what had just passed. And a few moments later the two visitors took their leave, the old lawyer shaking hands punctiliously with the four members of the family present; Mr Littlewood contenting himself with a touch of his hostess’ cold fingers, a more cordial clasp of Frances’ hand, and a vague bow in the direction of Eira, still in the sheltered corner so abruptly deserted by Betty.