The Post-Girl. Edward Charles Booth
nodding his head sagaciously. "So they 've got my time-table. And I thought I was n't known of a soul! What an ostrich I 've been!"
"Everybody knows of you," she said, in wonder he should think otherwise.
"I 'm sure they do," he assented. "What sort of a character do they give me? ... Would just about hang me at the Assizes, I suppose?"
"They say you 're a great musician..." she said, with watchful eyes of inquiry.
"Palestrina!" he exclaimed. "However did they come by the truth?"
"... And no one can play like you...."
"Yes?"
"... And you 've come here away from people to compose a great piece ... and don't want anybody to ... to hear you."
The tide of her words ebbed suddenly there, leaving her eyes stranded upon his. The same thought came up simultaneously to them both.
"And so ... that 's why you did n't come."
She dropped her eyes.
"I knew it was mean," she said humbly, "taking things when your back was turned. I felt like stealing, at first. I could n't listen for shame."
"And what 'll be to pay for it all ... when you get back?" said he.
The fringe of her lashes was raised while her eyes reconnoitred, and dropped again.
"Nothing," she told him.
"And no questions asked?"
"No."
"And nobody sitting up for you, ready to put the clock on half an hour, and point a finger at it when you return?"
"No-o...." She twirled the tumbler jerkily between soft thumb and forefinger. "They think I 'm in bed. And I did go," with a sudden resurrection of self-righteousness. "Only"—the self-righteousness went under here—"... when they were all asleep ... I slipped out and came to Cliff Wrangham."
"So-o-o!" said the Spawer, spraying his comprehension hugely this time with the word, as though it were a shower-bath to enlightenment. "That 's the secret of things at last, is it?" His eyes were spinning on the girl like peg-tops in delicious amusement. "And I suppose I 've got to guard it with my life's blood?"
A grateful face flashed thankfulness up at him for its relief from the necessity of appeal.
"Here 's the bond," said he. "Subscribe, and say done." He threw out an open palm of contract across the table, and the small hand crept into it with the timorous, large-hearted trust for an unfamiliar shelter. "And I 'm afraid," he said self-reproachfully, "that you 've torn your dress?"
"Oh, no, ... a little." She made-believe to look at her skirt between the table and sofa, and take stock of the damage done. "It 's nothing."
"At the time," said the Spawer, "it sounded terrible enough. I hope it is n't as bad as the sound."
She drew up what appeared to be the ruined remnants of a phylactery, and held it above the table-edge for his scrutiny, saying: "It does n't matter," with a hopeful smile.
"But that 's awful," he said distressfully.
"It 's only an old skirt," she explained, making light of the raiment with true feminine instinct, lest perhaps he might think she had no better. "I can soon mend it."
"Shall I fetch you a needle and some cotton?" he asked, in a penitential voice. "I have both upstairs."
The girl's eyes made a quick clutch at the needle and cotton, but her lips hung back meekly to a suggestion of pins, with some murmur about "trouble."
"Trouble!" said the Spawer.
He spun the word up in contemptuous disregard as though it were a shuttlecock, and slipped blithely up the little staircase. A second or so later, when she had heard him drop the matches and rake over the carpet for them with his finger-ends, and weave sundry spiderous tracks across the ceiling, he was down again triumphantly extending the objects of his quest.
All too quickly the girl whipped the serrated edges of serge together, while he watched her—with a busy back and forth of needle—snapped the thread round a determined small finger, shook the skirt into position, and rose (conscientiously sheathing the needle in the cotton bobbin), showing parted lips for gratitude and farewell. The latter, taking the Spawer somewhat by surprise, awakened all at once his dormant solicitude.
"But you 're not going ... now!" he said. The girl said softly, "If he pleased." "Why, you have n't half finished!" he exclaimed, pointing to the desolate tumbler, its contents untasted. The girl looked remorsefully at the object of her neglect, and said, still more softly, "If he did n't mind...."
"Not in the least," the Spawer reassured her. "But are you quite sure," he said anxiously, "that you 're strong enough to start back—just yet? Do you think it 's altogether wise?"
The girl thought it so wise that the Spawer had no alternative but to accept the cotton bobbin from her, a thing which his fingers (in their concern for her welfare) showed a certain disinclination to do.
"At least," said he, "you 'll let me see you back as far as Hesketh's corner?" But the girl said, "Oh no, please ... and thank you.... I 'm accustomed to walk alone," so once again he felt constrained to abide by her decision, not knowing how many secret considerations might have gone to the making of it.
"But ... look here," he said, in a conclusive spurt of candor, brought about by the imminence of their parting; "... we 're not saying good-by for good, are we?"
"I—I hope not," said the girl, and something stirred her lips and lashes as though a breeze had blown across them.
"Well, I hope not too," said the Spawer. "For that would make me feel sad. I must n't keep you any longer now, I know, for I don't want you to get into trouble; but it 's awfully good of you to have come, and believe me, I 'm really grateful. If there 's anything in music I can do for you, I want you to know that you 've only to ask, and it shall be done for you with pleasure. Honest Injun. You won't forget, will you?"
The girl said she could never forget ... his kindness.
"It 's a promise, then?" said the Spawer.
Again the little unseen breath blew across her features at the question, and to his surprise he could have almost sworn to tears upon her lashes when he looked up for affirmation in the girl's eyes. To cover any confusion that his words might have wrought, he put out a friendly hand for parting.
"All right," said he, in voice of cheerful agreement. "So that's settled," though a dozen questions were fighting for first place on his lips as he said it. The little brown hand stole for the second time into the shelter of his own with a solemnity that, at other moments, he could have laughed at, and a moment later the Spawer was left gazing at the orchard gate, thrown three quarters open, as he had done in that first memorable moment, with the girl's soft footsteps merged every second more deceptively in the starry stillness of night.
CHAPTER IV
Whatever the Spawer might choose to say of himself for purposes of humor (not, I am afraid, an invariable pole-star to truth), he was no sluggard. By agreement, dated the first night of his arrival, Jeff Dixon was to get a penny a day for bringing up the bath-water and having him into it at seven in the morning. Something short of the hour Jeff would stumble up the little steep staircase, with his tongue out, behind a big bucket of cold water (the last of three drawn to get the full freshness of the pump), and anticipating a few minutes in his statement of the time, make preliminary clamor for the Spawer's acknowledgment before departing to fetch the hot. From which moment forth the Spawer was a marked man, whom no subterfuge or earthly ingenuity could save. Once a drowsy voice begged Jeff to be so good as to call again.
"An' loss my penny!" cried Jeff, with fine commercial scorn at the suggestion. "Nay, we 'll 'ave ye oot o' bed an' all, noo we 've gotten started o' ye."
And tramped diabolically downstairs after the second bucket.
But though a little comedy of this sort, now and