The Post-Girl. Edward Charles Booth
somebody different," he asked, drawing the subject away from the awkward brink of their disparity, "when you 're so unmistakably like yourself? Sakes alive! Nobody could mistake you."
She lowered eyes and voice together, and made with her fingers on the rail as though she were deciphering her words from some half-obliterated inscription in the wood.
"I want to tell you," she began, and the dear little golden freckles on her nose seemed to close in upon each other for strength and comfort, "how very sorry I am ... for what happened last night."
"You can't be sorrier than I am," the Spawer said. "It 's been on my conscience ever since. I was a beast to jump out as I did, and I admit it."
"I don't mean you," the girl cut in, with quick correction.
"Who then?" asked the Spawer.
"Me..." said the girl. "You were as kind as could be. Nobody could have been kinder ... under the circumstances ... or helped me to be less ashamed of myself."
"Please not to make fun of the poor blind man," the Spawer begged her, "... for he can't see it, and it 's wicked."
"Oh, but I mean it," said the girl. "I never got to sleep all last night for thinking of the music, and how badly I 'd acted."
"To be sure," said the Spawer, "your acting was n't altogether good. If, for instance, you had n't mistaken your cue when I came out through the window, I should never have known you were there at all."
"Should n't you?" asked the girl, with the momentary blank face for an opportunity gorgeously lost.
"Indeed, I should n't."
"All the same ... I 'm glad you did," she said, with sudden reversion of humility.
"Ah. That 's better," the Spawer assented. "So am I. It shows a proper appreciation of Providence."
"Because," the girl proceeded to explain, "when you 're found out you feel somehow as though you 'd paid for your wrong-doing, don't you? And, at least, it saves you from being a hypocrite, does n't it?"
"Oh, yes," said the Spawer, with infectious piety. "Capital thing for that. Splendid thing for that."
"Father Mostyn..." she began. "You know Father Mostyn, don't you?"
The name brought an uncomfortable sense of visitorial obligations unfulfilled to the Spawer's mind.
"Slightly," he said, the diminutive seeming to offer indemnity for his neglect.
"Yes, I thought so. He said you did," the girl continued. "You 're going to call and see him sometime, are n't you?"
"Sometime," the Spawer acquiesced. "Yes, certainly. I 'm hoping to do so when I can get a moment to spare. But I 'm very busy." He shifted the centre of conversation from his own shoulders. "Father Mostyn ... you were saying?"
"Oh, yes! Father Mostyn 's always warning us against being Ullbrig hypocrites. But it seems so hard to avoid." She sighed in spirit of hopelessness. "I seem to grow into an Ullbrig hypocrite in spite of everything."
"Never mind," said the Spawer consolatorily, casting a glance of admiration along the smooth, sleek cheek and neck. "It looks an excellent thing for the complexion."
"That?" The girl ran a careless hand where his eye had been without making any attempt to parry the compliment. "Oh, that 's being out in the rain. Rain 's a wonderful thing for the complexion. Father Mostyn says so. But it can't wash these away," she said, touching the little cluster of freckles with a wistful finger. "These are being out in the sun."
"I was looking at those too," said the Spawer frankly. "I rather like them."
"Do you?" asked the girl, plucking up at his appreciation. "Yes, some people do—but not those that have them. Father Mostyn says they 're not actually a disfigurement, but they 're given me to chasten my pride. He says whenever I 'm tempted to look in the glass I shall always see these and remind myself, 'Yes, but my nose is freckled,' and that will save me from being vain. And it's funny, but it 's quite true."
"You know Father Mostyn well, of course?" said the Spawer, his question not altogether void of a desire to learn how far this estimable ecclesiast might be discussed with safety.
"Oh!" The girl made the quick round mouth for admiration, and held up visible homage in her eyes. "Father Mostyn's the best friend I have in the world. He 's taught me everything I know—it's my fault, not his, that I know so little—and done things for me, and given me things that all my gratitude can never, never repay. It was he allowed me to go round with the letters."
"That was very good of him," said the Spawer, with a tight mouth.
"Was n't it?" the girl said, showing a little glow of recognisant enthusiasm. "At first uncle was rather frightened—frightened that I ought not to do it, but we all thought six shillings a lot of money to lose (that 's what I get); and Father Mostyn said most certainly I was to have it."
"And so he gave it," said the Spawer. "Jolly kind of him."
"Oh, no! he did n't give it," the girl corrected, after a momentary reference to the Spawer's face. "Government gives it ... but he said I was to have it—and I have."
"And what did uncle say?" asked the Spawer amicably.
"Uncle? Oh, he said it was the will of Providence, and he hoped it would soon be ten; but it's not ten yet, and I don't think it will be for a long time. There were others who wanted the six shillings too, as badly as I did—and deserved it better, some of them, I mink. At one time I felt so ashamed to be going about and taking the money that seemed to belong to such a number of people who said they had a right to it, that I asked to give the bag up; but uncle seemed so sad about it, and said it was flying in the face of Providence to give anything up that you 'd once got hold of, and Father Mostyn said it was a special blessing of Heaven bestowed upon me (though I 'm sure I don't know) ... and so I kept it. It was a struggle at times, though—even though Father Mostyn used to walk with me all the way round by Shippus to keep up my courage.... And that reminds me," she said, showing sudden perception of responsibility, "I have to go that way this morning."
"What! have n't you got rid of all your letters yet, then?"
"All except two," she said, and thrusting open the flabby canvas maw with one hand, peered down into its profounds as though her look should satisfy him of their presence by proxy. "They 're for Shippus."
"And you have to walk round by Shippus ... now?"
She nodded her head, and said a smiling "Yes" to his surprise, letting fall the canvas and patting the bag's cheek with the consolatory dismissal for a dog just freed from dental inspection. Then, more reluctantly, as though the saying were as hard to come at as a marked apple at the bottom of the barrel, she said ... she must really ... be going. They would be expecting her. She 'd been kept rather long at Barclay's as it was, writing something out for him. And made to come through the gate.
"And, by Jove ... that reminds me," said the Spawer. "So must I."
She drew a covetous conclusion from his bathing equipment, and the blue sky, showing so deep and still beyond the cliff line, and was already half turned on a leave-taking heel (a little saddened, perhaps, at his readiness to assist the separation), when she found him by her side.
"But which way are you going?" she asked, for the sea lay now at their backs, and the Spawer, as was evident (and as we all know), had been going a-bathing.
"The same way as you are," he answered, "if you 'll have me."
And when Miss Bates (who had been watching them all the time from the end attic window, with Jeff's six-penny telescope stuck to one eye and a hand clapped over the other) saw this result of the girl's abominable scheming, she became very wroth indeed; filled to the brim and overflowing with righteous indignation that her sex could sink thus low. She snapped the telescope together so viciously that she thought she had cracked it, and when she found she had n't she was wrother than ever as compensation for this false alarm, and almost wished she had.
"Ay, ye may set ye-sen up at 'im,