"But _your_ heart inclines to the old colony, Miss Susan?--I beg your pardon--didn't remember what I was saying at that moment. Somehow you look so much as you used to do, barring the cap," said the Australian, "that one forgets all that has happened. You incline to cross the seas again, Mrs Rider, without thinking of the expense?--and very sensible too. There never was a place like this blessed old country for swallowing up a man's money. You'll save as much in a year in the colony as will take you across."

"That is what I always say;--but of course my wishes are little thought of," said Mrs Fred, with a sigh; "of course it's Nettie we have to look to now. If she does not choose, to be sure, it does not matter what I wish. Ah! if I don't look different, I feel different--things are changed _now_."

The Bushman gave a puzzled glance, first at one sister and then at the other. It occurred to him that Fred had not been so much of a strength and protection to his family as this speech implied, and that Nettie had been the person whom Mrs Rider had to "look to" even before they left that colony for which she now sighed. But Mrs Fred, in her sorrow and her white cap, was an interesting figure to the eyes which were not much accustomed to look upon womankind. He had no doubt hers was a hard case.

Nettie sat opposite, very busy, silent, and resolute, flashing dangerous sudden glances occasionally at her languid sister and their big visitor.

It was confusing to meet those brilliant impatient wrathful eyes; though they were wonderfully bright, they put out the wild man of the woods, and made him feel uncomfortable. He turned with relief to those milder orbs which Mrs Fred buried in her handkerchief. Poor little oppressed woman, dependent upon that little arbitrary sister! The sincerest pity awoke in the Bushman's heart.

"Well!" he said, good-humouredly, "I hope you'll come to be of one mind when Miss Nettie thinks it over again; and you have only to drop me a line to let me know when your plans are formed; and it will go hard with me, but I'll make mine suit them one way or another. All that I can do for you in the way of outfit or securing your pa.s.sages--or even, if you would allow me----"

Here the good fellow paused, afraid to venture any further. Nettie looked up in a sudden blaze, and transfixed him with her eye.

"We have enough for everything we want, thank you," said Nettie, looking through and through his guilty benevolent intentions, and bringing a flush of confusion to his honest cheeks. "When I say I cannot afford anything, I don't mean to ask anybody's a.s.sistance, Mr Chatham. We can do very well by ourselves. If it came to be best for the children--or if Susan keeps on wishing it, and gets her own way, as she generally does,"

said Nettie, with heightened colour, dropping her eyes, and going on at double speed with her work, "I daresay we shall manage it as we did before. But that is my concern. n.o.body in the world has anything to do with it but me."

"Oh, Nettie, dear, you're giving in at last!--do say you'll go! and Mr Chatham promises he'll take care of us on the way," cried Mrs Fred, clasping her hands. They were thin hands, and looked delicate in contrast with her black dress. She was very interesting, pathetic, and tender to the rough eyes of the Bushranger. He thought that imperative little creature opposite, with her brilliant glances, her small head drooping under those heavy braids of hair, her tiny figure and rapid fingers, looked like a little cruel sprite oppressing the melancholy soul. When Nettie rose from the table, goaded into sudden intolerance by that appeal, the climax of the "continual dropping," and threw her work indignantly on the table, and called Freddy to come directly, and get dressed for his walk, the impression made by her supposed arbitrary and imperious behaviour was not diminished. She went out disdainful, making no reply, and left those two to a private conference. Then Mrs Fred unbosomed her bereaved heart to that sympathetic stranger. She told him how different everything was now--how hard it was to be dependent even on one's sister--how far otherwise things might have been, if poor dear Fred had been more prudent: one way or other, all her life through, Susan had been an injured woman. All her desire was to take the children back to the colony before she died. "If Nettie would but yield!" sighed Mrs Fred, clasping her hands.

"Nettie must yield!" cried the Bushranger, full of emotion; and Susan cried a little, and told him how much the poor dear children wished it; and knew in her fool's heart that she had driven Nettie to the extremest bounds of patience, and that a little more persistence and iteration would gain the day.

In the mean time Nettie went out with Freddy--the other two being at school--and took him across the fields for his afternoon walk. The little fellow talked of Australia all the way, with a childish treachery and betrayal of her cause which went to Nettie's heart. She walked by his side, hearing without listening, throbbing all over with secret disgust, impatience, and despair. She too perceived well enough the approaching crisis. She saw that once more all her own resolution--the purpose of her heart--would be overborne by the hopeless pertinacity of the unconvincible, unreasoning fool. She did not call her sister hard names--she recognised the quality without giving it its appropriate t.i.tle--and recognised also, with a bitterness of resistance, yet a sense of the inevitable, not to be described, the certain issue of the unequal contest. What chance had the generous little heart, the hasty temper, the quick and vivacious spirit, against that unwearying, unreasoning pertinacity? Once more she must arise, and go forth to the end of the world: and the sacrifice must be final now.

CHAPTER XIV.

"Well, it's to be hoped she's going to do well for herself--that's all we've got to do with it, eh? I suppose so," said Mr Wodehouse; "she's nothing to you, is she, but a little girl you've taken a deal of notice of?--more notice than was wanted, if I am any judge. If she does go and marry this fellow from Australia, and he's willing to take the whole bundle back to where they came from, it is the best thing that could happen, in _my_ opinion. Sly young dog, that doctor, though, I must say--don't you think so? Well, that's how it appears to me. Let's see; there was Bessie----; hum! perhaps it's as well, in present circ.u.mstances, to name no names. There was _her_, in the first instance, you know; and the way he got out of that was beautiful; it was what I call instructive, was that. And then--why then, there was Miss Marjoribanks, you know--capital match that--just the thing for young Rider--set him up for life."

"Papa, pray--_pray_ don't talk nonsense," said Miss Wodehouse, with gentle indignation. "Miss Marjoribanks is at least ten years----"

"Oh, stuff!--keep your old-maidish memory to yourself, Molly; who cares for a dozen years or so? Hasn't she all the old Scotchman's practice and his savings?--and a fine woman yet--a fine woman, eh? Well, yes, I think so; and then here's this little wretch of a sister-in-law. Why, the doctor's taken your _role_, Wentworth, eh? Well, I suppose what ought to be your _role_, you know, though I _have_ seen you casting glances at the strange little creature yourself."

"Indeed, I a.s.sure you, you are entirely mistaken," said Mr Wentworth, hastily, with a sudden flush of either indignation or guilt. The curate glanced at Lucy Wodehouse, who was walking demurely by his side, but who certainly did p.r.i.c.k up her ears at this little bit of news. She saw very well that he had looked at her, but would take no notice of his glance. But Lucy's curiosity was notably quickened, notwithstanding; St Roque's Cottage was wonderfully handy, if the perpetual curate of the pretty suburban church saw anything worth visiting there. Lucy drew up her pretty shoulders in her grey sister-of-mercy cloak, and opened her blue eyes a little wider. She was still in circ.u.mstances to defy her reverend lover, if his eyes had declined upon lower attractions than her own. She looked very straight before her with unpitying precision down the road, on which St Roque's Church and Cottage were becoming already visible. The whole party were walking briskly over a path hard with frost, which made their footsteps ring. The air was still with a winterly touch, benumbed with cold, yet every sound rang sharply through that clear cloudless atmosphere, reddened without being warmed by the sun as it approached the west. It was Christmas again, and they were wending their way towards St Roque's to a.s.sist at the holiday decorations, for which cartloads of laurel and holly had been already deposited within the church. Lucy Wodehouse was chief directress of these important operations. Her sister had accompanied her, partly to admire Lucy's work, and partly to call at the cottage and see how Nettie was going on. Mr Wodehouse himself had come merely for the pride and pleasure of seeing how much they were indebted to his little girl; and the attendance of the curate was most easily explainable. It was, indeed, astonishing how many extremely necessary and natural "calls of duty"

should bring Mr Wentworth's path parallel to that of the Wodehouses.

This is why they were all proceeding together on this particular afternoon in the week before Christmas towards St Roque's.

In the church, when the party arrived, a little group of workers were busy. The chancel arch was already bristling with glossy holly-leaves.

At a little distance from the active group occupied with this pleasant work, and full of chatter and consultation, as was natural, stood one little figure pointing out to two children the wonders of that decorative art. Every one of the new-comers, except Mr Wodehouse, recognised Nettie before she was aware of their presence. She stood with her bonnet fallen a little back, as it generally was, either by encounter of the wind, or by the quant.i.ty and luxuriance of her beautiful hair, looking upwards to the point where she had directed the children's eyes. She looked a little forlorn and solitary, as was natural, all by herself, so near that group of busy girls in the chancel--so little separated from them by age, so entirely divided by circ.u.mstances. If a certain softening of half-tender pity shone in the curate's eye, could Lucy Wodehouse blame him? But the fact was, Lucy swept past the little Australian with a very brief salutation, and burst into sudden criticism of the work that had been done in her absence, which startled her collaborateurs, while Mr Wentworth followed her into the chancel with a meekness quite unusual to that young priest. Nettie noted both circ.u.mstances with a little surprise; but, not connecting them in the most distant degree with herself, turned round with a little twitch of Freddy's arm to go away, and in doing so almost walked into the arms of her older and more faithful friend. Miss Wodehouse kissed her quite suddenly, touching with her soft old cheek that rounder, fairer, youthful face, which turned, half wondering, half pleased, with the look of a child, to receive her caress. Nettie was as unconscious that Miss Wodehouse's unusual warmth was meant to make up for Lucy's careless greeting, as that Lucy had pa.s.sed her with a positive flutter of resentment and indignation, and that she had been the subject of the conversation and thoughts of all the party. Miss Wodehouse turned with her, taking Freddy's other hand--a proceeding to which that hero rather demurred. They went out together to the frosty road, where the bare willow-branches rustled between the church and the cottage. When they reached the porch of St Roque's, Nettie instinctively held her breath, and stood still for a moment.

Along the footpath in front of them a big figure was pa.s.sing, and beyond that bearded shadow the doctor's drag flew past with all the separate tones of the horse's feet, the wheels, the jingle of the harness, ringing clear through the sharp unsoftened medium of that frosty atmosphere. The doctor himself had all his attention concentrated upon the windows of the cottage, in which the sun was blazing red. He did not see Nettie in the church porch. He was looking for her too intently in the crimsoned windows, to which he turned his head back as he dashed on. Unawares Nettie clasped the fingers of her little companion tighter in her hand as she watched that unexpected homage. The drag was out of sight in another moment; and in a few seconds more the bell of the cottage pealed audibly, and the door was heard to open, admitting the Bushman, who had come upon one of his frequent visits. That last sound disturbed Nettie's composure, and at the same time brought her back to herself.

"I cannot ask you to go in, for Mr Chatham is there, and Susan of course talking to him," said Nettie, with a quiet breath of restrained impatience, "but I should like to talk to you, please. Let me take the children home, and then I will walk up with you. Mrs Smith is very kind; she will take off their things for them: they behave better now, when I am out for a few minutes--though, to be sure, I never am out much to try them. Come, children; be good, and do not make a great noise till I come back."

"What do you want to talk to _her_ for?" asked the little girl, gazing coldly in Miss Wodehouse's face.

"When Nettie went out to tea, we made as much noise as we liked," said Freddy, "but there was papa there. Now there's only mamma, and she's so cross. I hate Chatham--mamma is always crossest when Chatham's there.

What do you want to talk to people for, Nettie? Come in, and say there's to be toast, and let us have tea."

"We never have any tea till Nettie comes back," added his sister, looking full once more into Miss Wodehouse's face. The calm childish impertinence disconcerted that gentle woman. She gazed at the wonderful creatures with dumb amazement. Her eyes fell before their steady stare.

"I should be sorry to bring you out again, dear, if it's a trouble,"

began Miss Wodehouse, turning her face with a sense of relief from the hard inspection of the children to their little guardian.

Nettie made no reply, but carried off her children to the cottage door, turned them peremptorily in, and issued her last orders. "If you make a noise, you shall not go," said Nettie; and then came back alert, with her rapid fairy steps, to Miss Wodehouse's side.

"Does not their mother take any charge of them?" faltered the gentle inquisitor. "I never can understand you young people, Nettie. Things were different in my days. Do you think it's quite the best thing to do other people's duties for them, dear? and now I'm so sorry--oh, so sorry--to hear what you are going to do now."

"Susan is delicate," said Nettie. "She never had any health to speak of--I mean, she always got better, you know, but never had any pleasure in it. There must be a great deal in that," continued Nettie, reflectively; "it never comes into my head to think whether I am ill or well; but poor Susan has always had to be thinking of it. Yes, I shall have to take them away," she added again, after a pause. "I am sorry, very sorry too, Miss Wodehouse. I did not think at one time that I had the heart to do it. But on the whole, you know, it seems so much better for them. Susan will be stronger out there, and I have not money enough to give the children a very good education. They will just have to push their way like the others; and in the colony, you know, things are so different.

I have no doubt in my own mind now that it will be best for them all."

"But, Nettie, Nettie, what of yourself? will it be best for you?" cried Miss Wodehouse, looking earnestly in her face.

"What is best for them will be best for me," said Nettie, with a little impatient movement of her head. She said so with unfaltering spirit and prompt.i.tude. She had come to be impatient of the dreary maze in which she was involved. "If one must break one's heart, it is best to do it at once and have done with it," said Nettie, under her breath.

"What was that you said about your heart?" said Miss Wodehouse. "Ah, my dear, that is what I wanted to speak of. You are going to be married, Nettie, and I wanted to suggest to you, if you won't be angry. Don't you think you could make some arrangement about your sister and her family, dear?--not to say a word against the Australian gentleman, Nettie, whom, of course, I don't know. A man may be the best of husbands, and yet not be able to put up with a whole family. I have no doubt the children are very nice clever children, but their manner is odd, you know, for such young creatures. You have been sacrificing yourself for them all this time; but remember what I say--if you want to live happily, my dear, you'll have to sacrifice them to your husband. I could not be content without saying as much to you, Nettie. I never was half the good in this world that you are, but I am nearly twice as old--and one does pick up some little hints on the way. That is what you must do, Nettie. Make some arrangement, dear. If he has promised to take them out with you, that is all right enough; but when you come to settle down in your new home, make some arrangement dear."

When Miss Wodehouse arrived breathless at the conclusion of a speech so unusually long for her, she met Nettie's eyes flashing upon her with the utmost surprise and curiosity. "I shall never marry anybody," said Nettie. "What do you mean?"

"Don't say anything so foolish," said Miss Wodehouse, a little nettled.

"Do you suppose I don't know and see _that_ Mr Chatham coming and going?

How often has he been seen since the first time, Nettie? and do you suppose it's all been benevolence? My dear, I know better."

Nettie looked up with a startled glance. She did not blush, nor betray any pleasant consciousness. She cast one dismayed look back towards the cottage, and another at Miss Wodehouse. "Can _that_ be why he comes?"

said Nettie, with quiet horror. "Indeed, I never thought of it before--but all the same, I shall never marry anybody. Do you imagine," cried the brilliant creature, flashing round upon poor Miss Wodehouse, so as to dazzle and confuse that gentlewoman, "that a man has only to intend such a thing and it's all settled? I think differently. Twenty thousand Chathams would not move me. I shall never marry anybody, if I live to be as old as--as you, or Methuselah, or anybody. It is not my lot. I shall take the children out to Australia, and do the best I can for them.

Three children want a great deal of looking after--and after a while in Carlingford, you will all forget that there ever was such a creature as Nettie. No, I am not crying. I never cry. I should scorn to cry about it. It is simply _my business_. That is what it is. One is sorry, of course, and now and then it feels hard, and all that. But what did one come into the world for, I should like to know? Does anybody suppose it was just to be comfortable, and have one's own way? I have had my own way a great deal--more than most people. If I get crossed in some things, I have to bear it. That is all I am going to say. I have got other things to do, Miss Wodehouse. I shall never marry anybody all my life."

"My dear, if you are thrown upon this Mr Chatham for society all the time of the voyage, and have n.o.body else to talk to----" said the prudent interlocutor.

"Then we'll go in another ship," cried Nettie, promptly; "that is easily managed. I know what it is, a long voyage with three children--they fall up the cabin-stairs, and they fall down the forecastle; and they give you twenty frights in a day that they will drop overboard. One does not have much leisure for anything--not even for thinking, which is a comfort sometimes," added Nettie, confidentially, to herself.

"It depends upon what you think of, whether thinking is a comfort or not," said good Miss Wodehouse. "When I think of you young people, and all the perplexities you get into! There is Lucy now, vexed with Mr Wentworth about something--oh, nothing worth mentioning; and there was poor Dr Rider! How he did look behind him, to be sure, as he went past St Roque's! I daresay it was you he was looking for, Nettie. I wish you and he could have fancied each other, and come to some arrangement about poor Mr Fred's family--to give them so much to live on, or something. I a.s.sure you, when I begin to think over such things, and how perverse both people and circ.u.mstances are, thinking is very little comfort to me."

Miss Wodehouse drew a long sigh, and was by no means disinclined to cry over her little companion. Though she was the taller of the two, she leant upon Nettie's firm little fairy arm as they went up the quiet road.

Already the rapid winter twilight had fallen, and before them, in the distance, glimmered the lights of Carlingford--foremost among which shone conspicuous the large placid white lamp (for professional reds and blues were beneath his dignity) which mounted guard at Dr Marjoribanks's garden gate. Those lights, beginning to shine through the evening darkness, gave a wonderful look of home to the place. Instinctively there occurred to Nettie's mind a vision of how it would be on the sea, with a wide dark ocean heaving around the solitary speck on its breast.

It did not matter! If a silent sob arose in her heart, it found no utterance. Might not Edward Rider have made that suggestion which had occurred only to Miss Wodehouse? Why did it never come into his head that Susan and her family might have a provision supplied for them, which would relieve Nettie? He had not thought of it, that was all.

Instead of that, he had accepted the impossibility. Nettie's heart had grown impatient in the maze of might-be's. She turned her back upon the lights, and clasped Miss Wodehouse's hand, and said good-night hastily.

She went on by herself very rapidly along the hard gleaming road. She did not pay any attention to her friend's protestation that she too was coming back again to St Roque's to join Lucy--on the contrary, Nettie peremptorily left Miss Wodehouse, shaking hands with her in so resolute a manner that her gentle adviser felt somehow a kind of necessity upon her to pursue her way home; and, only when Nettie was nearly out of sight, turned again with hesitation to retrace her steps towards St Roque's. Nettie, meanwhile, went on at a pace which Miss Wodehouse could not possibly have kept up with, clasping her tiny hands together with a swell of scorn and disdain unusual to it in her heart. Yes! Why did not Edward Rider propose the "arrangement" which appeared feasible enough to Miss Wodehouse? Supposing even Nettie had refused to consent to it, as she might very probably have done with indignation--still, why did it not occur to Dr Edward? She asked herself the question with a heat and pa.s.sion which she found it difficult to account for. She half despised her lover, as woman will, for obeying her--almost scorned him, as woman will, for the mere constancy which took no violent measures, but only suffered and accepted the inevitable. To submit to what cannot be helped is a woman's part. Nettie, hastening along that familiar path, blazed into a sudden burst of rage against Edward because he submitted. What he could do else she was as ignorant of as any unreasonable creature could be. But that mattered little. With indignation she saw herself standing on the verge of that domestic precipice, and the doctor looking on, seeing her glide out of his reach, yet putting forth no violent sudden hand to detain her. All the impatience of her fiery nature boiled in her veins as she hasted to the cottage, where Susan was discussing their journey with her Australian visitor. No remnant of pathos or love-sickening remained about Nettie, as she flashed in upon them in all her old haste and self-reliance--resolute to precipitate the catastrophe which n.o.body took any measures to prevent.

CHAPTER XV.

It was not long before the doctor was made aware of the ghost in his troubled path. n.o.body in Carlingford could meet the big Bushman in those streets, which always looked too narrow for him, without a certain curiosity about that savage man. Dr Rider had observed him with jealous interest on his very first appearance, but had hitherto connected no idea but that of a return to Australia, which he felt sure Nettie would never consent to, with the big stranger. With such a thought he had seen him making his way towards the cottage that very evening when he himself turned back, as long as those crimsoned windows were visible, to look for Nettie, who did not show herself. The doctor was bound to see a distant patient, miles on the other side of Carlingford. As he dashed along over the echoing road he had time to imagine to himself how Nettie might at that very moment be badgered and persecuted; and when he had seen his patient and done his duty, and with the lamps lighted in the drag, and the frosty wind blowing keen on his face, and the lights of Carlingford cheering him on in the distance, was once more returning, an impatience, somewhat akin to Nettie's, suddenly came upon the doctor.

Akin, yet different; for in his case it was an impulse of sensation, an inspiration of the exhilarating speed and energy of motion with which he flew through the bracing air, master of himself, his horse, and the long sweep of solitary road before him. Again it occurred to Dr Rider to dash forward to St Roque's and carry off Nettie, oppose it who would. The idea pleased him as he swept along in the darkness, its very impossibility making the vision sweeter. To carry her off at a stroke, in glorious defiance of circ.u.mstances, and win happiness and love, whatever might ensue. In the flush of the moment the doctor suddenly asked himself whether this, after all, were not the wisest course? whether, whatever might come of it, happiness was not worth the encounter of the dark array of troubles behind? and whether to precipitate everything by a sudden conclusion might not be the best way of solving all the intricacies of the matter? He was still in this mood when he arrived at his own house, where dinner, as usual, was not improved by having been ready for an hour. The lamp was not lighted when he came in, and only the cold reflection of the street lights outside, with a particoloured gleam at the corner window from his own red and blue professional ensign at the surgery door, lighted the solitary little room, where he looked in vain even for so much as a note or letter to bring some shadow of human fellowship to his home; the fire smouldering dully, the big chair turned with a sullen back against the wall, as if n.o.body ever sat there--though Nettie had once and for ever appropriated it to her use--everything in such inhuman trim and good order disgusted the doctor.

He rang his bell violently for the lights and refreshments which were so slow of coming, and, throwing himself into that chair, bit his nails and stared out at the lamplight in the rapid access of thought that came upon him. The first thing that disturbed him in this was the apparition of a figure outside peering in with some anxiety at the blank windows--somebody who was evidently curious to know whether the doctor had yet come home. The unhappy doctor started, and rang his bell once more with furious iteration. He knew what was coming. Somebody else, no doubt, had taken ill, without any consideration for young Rider's dinner, which, however, a man must manage to swallow even when tormented with importunate patients, and in love. But the knock of the untimely visitor sounded at the much-a.s.sailed door before Mary, sulky and resistant, had been able to arrange before the hungry doctor the half-warm half-cold viands which his impatience would not permit to be duly "heated up;" and he had just seated himself to dispose of the unsatisfactory meal when the little groom, who was as tired as his master, opened the door for Mrs Smith from St Roque's. Mrs Smith was a familiar periodical visitor at Dr Rider's. She had not ceased to hold to that hasty and unwise financial arrangement into which the doctor was persuaded to enter when Fred's pipe had exasperated the landlady into rebellion. He had supplemented the rent at that exciting moment rather than have Nettie disturbed; and now that poor Fred's pipe was extinguished for ever, the doctor still paid the imposition demanded from him--half because he had no time to contest it, half because it was, however improper and unnecessary, a kind of pleasure to do something for Nettie, little as she knew and deeply as she would have resented it. Dr Rider's brows cleared up at sight of Nettie's landlady.

He expected some little private anecdotes of her and her ways, such as no one else could give him. He gave Mrs Smith a chair with a benignity to which she had no personal claim. Her arrival made Dr Rider's beefsteak palatable, though the cookery and condition of the same were, to say the least, far from perfect. Mrs Smith evidently was a little embarra.s.sed with the gracious reception she received. She twisted the corner of her shawl in her fingers as if it had been that ap.r.o.n with which women of her cla.s.s habitually relieve their feelings. She was in a false position. She came with the worst of news to the melancholy lover, and he treated her as if she brought some special message or favour from the lady of his thoughts.

"Well, Mrs Smith, and how are you all at the cottage?" said the doctor, applying himself leisurely to his beefsteak.