CHAPTER III

While Mr. Pepperdine refreshed himself at his friend’s house, his sisters awaited the coming of himself and his charge with as much patience as they could summon to their aid. Each knew that patience was not only necessary, but inevitable. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for Mr. Pepperdine to have driven straight home from the station and supped in his own parlour, and that, under the circumstances, would have seemed the most reasonable thing to do. But Mr. Pepperdine made a rule of never passing the gates of the Grange Farm, and his sisters knew that he would tarry there on his homeward journey, accept Mrs. Trippett’s invitation to tea, and spend an hour or two afterwards in convivial intercourse with Mr. Trippett. That took place every market-day and every time Mr. Pepperdine had occasion to travel by train; and the Misses Pepperdine knew that it would go on taking place as long as their brother Simpson and his friends at the Grange Farm continued to exist.

At nine o’clock Miss Pepperdine, who had been knitting by the parlour fire since seven, grew somewhat impatient.

‘I think Simpson might have come home straight from the station,’ she said in sharp, decided tones. ‘The child is sure to be tired.’

Miss Judith Pepperdine, engaged on fancy needlework on the opposite side of the hearth, shook her head.

‘Simpson never passes the Grange,’ she said. ‘That night I came with him from Oakborough last winter, I couldn’t get him to come home. He coaxed me to go in for just ten minutes, and we had to stop four hours.’

Miss Pepperdine sniffed. Her needles clicked vigorously for a few minutes longer; she laid them down at a{28} quarter past nine, went across the parlour to a cupboard, unlocked it, produced a spirit-case and three glasses, and set them on the table in the middle of the room. At the same moment a tap sounded on the door, and a maid entered bearing a jug of hot water, a dish of lemons, and a bowl of sugar. She was about to leave the room after setting her tray down when Miss Pepperdine stopped her.

‘I wonder what the boy had better have, Judith?’ she said, looking at her sister. ‘He’s sure to have had a good tea at the Grange—Sarah Trippett would see to that—but he’ll be cold. Some hot milk, I should think. Bring some new milk in the brass pan, Anne, and another glass—I’ll heat it myself over this fire.’

Then, without waiting to hear whether Miss Judith approved the notion of hot milk or not, she sat down to her knitting again, and when the maid had brought the brass pan and the glass and withdrawn, the parlour became hushed and silent. It was an old-world room—there was not an article of furniture in it that was less than a hundred years old, and the old silver and old china arranged in the cabinets and on the side-tables were as antiquated as the chairs, the old bureau, and the pictures. Everything was old, good, and substantial; everything smelled of a bygone age and of dried rose-leaves.

The two sisters, facing each other across the hearth, were in thorough keeping with the old-world atmosphere of their parlour. Miss Keziah Pepperdine, senior member of the family, and by no means afraid of admitting that she had attained her fiftieth year, was tall and well-built; a fine figure of a woman, with a handsome face, jet-black hair, and eyes of a decided keenness. There was character and decision in her every movement; in her sharp, incisive speech; in her quick glance; and in the nervous, resolute click of her knitting needles. As she knitted, she kept her lips pursed tightly together and her eyes fixed upon her work: it needed little observation to make sure that{29} whatever Miss Pepperdine did would be done with resolution and thoroughness. She was a woman to be respected rather than loved; feared more than honoured; and there was a flash in her hawk’s eyes, and a grimness about her mouth, which indicated a temper that could strike with force and purpose. Further indications of her character were seen in her attire, which was severely simple—a gown of black, unrelieved by any speck of white, hanging in prim, straight folds, and utterly unadorned, but, to a knowing eye, fashioned of most excellent and costly material.

Judith Pepperdine, many years younger than her sister, was dressed in black too, but the sombreness of her attire was relieved by white cuffs and collar, and by a very long thin gold chain, which was festooned twice round her neck ere it sought refuge in the watch-pocket at her waist. She had a slender figure of great elegance, and was proud of it, just as she was proud of the fact that at forty years of age she was still a pretty woman. There was something of the girl still left in her: some dreaminess of eye, a suspicion of coquetry, an innate desire to please the other sex and to be admired by men. Her cheek was still smooth and peach-like; her eyes still bright, and her brown hair glossy; old maid that she undoubtedly was, there were many good-looking girls in the district who had not half her attractions. To her natural good looks Judith Pepperdine added a native refinement and elegance; she knew how to move about a room and walk the village street. Her smile was famous—old Dr. Stubbins, of Normanfold, an authority in such matters, said that for sweetness and charm he would back Judith Pepperdine’s smile against the world.

There were many people who wondered why the handsome Miss Pepperdine had never married, but there was scarcely one who knew why she had remained and meant to remain single. Soon after the marriage of her sister Lucy to Cyprian Damerel, Judith developed a love-affair of her own with a dashing{30} cavalry man, a sergeant of the 13th Hussars, then quartered at Oakborough. He was a handsome young man, the son of a local farmer, and his ambition had been for soldiering from boyhood. Coming into the neighbourhood in all his glory, and often meeting Judith at the houses of mutual friends, he had soon laid siege to her and captured her susceptible heart. Their engagement was kept secret, for old Mrs. Pepperdine had almost as great an objection to soldiers as to foreigners, and would have considered a non-commissioned officer beneath her daughter’s notice. The sergeant, however, had aspirations—it was his hope to secure a commission in an infantry regiment, and his ambition in this direction seemed likely to be furthered when his regiment was ordered out to India and presently engaged in a frontier campaign. But there his good luck came to an untimely end—he performed a brave action which won him the Victoria Cross, but he was so severely wounded in doing it that he died soon afterwards, and Judith’s romance came to a bitter end. She had had many offers of marriage since, and had refused them all—the memory of the handsome Hussar still lived in her sentimental heart, and her most cherished possession was the cross which he had won and had not lived to receive. Time had healed the wound: she no longer experienced the pangs and sorrows of her first grief. Everything had been mellowed down into a soft regret, and the still living affection for the memory of a dead man kept her heart young.

That night Judith for once in a while had no thought of her dead lover—she was thinking of the boy whom Simpson was bringing to them. She remembered Lucy with wondering thoughts, trying to recall her as she was when Cyprian Damerel took her away to London and a new life. None of her own people had ever seen Lucy again—they were stay-at-home folk, and the artist and his wife had spent most of their short married life on the Continent. Now Damerel, too, was dead,{31} and the boy was coming back to his mother’s people, and Judith, who was given to dreaming, speculated much concerning him.

‘I wonder,’ she said, scarcely knowing that she spoke, ‘I wonder what Lucian will be like.’

‘And I wonder,’ said Miss Pepperdine, ‘if Damerel has left any money for him.’

‘Surely!’ exclaimed Judith. ‘He earned such large sums by his paintings.’

Miss Pepperdine’s needles clicked more sharply than ever.

‘He spent large sums too,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard of the way in which he lived. He was an extravagant man, like most of his sort. That sort of money is earned easily and spent easily. With his ideas and his tastes, he ought to have been a duke. I hope he has provided for the boy—times are not as good as they might be.’

‘You would never begrudge anything to Lucy’s child, sister?’ said Judith timidly, and with a wistful glance at Miss Pepperdine’s stern countenance. ‘I’m sure I shouldn’t—he is welcome to all I have.’

‘Umph!’ replied Miss Pepperdine. ‘Who talked of begrudging anything to the child? All I say is, I hope his father has provided for him.’

Judith made no answer to this remark, and the silence which followed was suddenly broken by the sound of wheels on the drive outside the house. Both sisters rose to their feet; each showed traces of some emotion. Without a word they passed out of the room into the hall. The maid-servant had already opened the door, and in the light of the hanging lamp they saw their brother helping Lucian out of the dogcart. The sisters moved forward.

‘Now, then, here we are!’ said Mr. Pepperdine. ‘Home again, safe and sound, and no breakages. Lucian, my boy, here’s your aunts Keziah and Judith. Take him in, lassies, and warm him—it’s a keenish night.’{32}

The boy stepped into the hall, and lifted his hat as he looked up at the two women.

‘How do you do?’ he said politely.

Miss Pepperdine drew a quick breath. She took the outstretched hand and bent down and kissed the boy’s cheek; in the lamplight she had seen her dead sister’s eyes look out of the young face, and for the moment she could not trust herself to speak. Judith trembled all over; as the boy turned to her she put both arms round him and drew him into the parlour, and there embraced him warmly. He looked at her somewhat wonderingly and critically, and then responded to her embrace.

‘You are my Aunt Judith,’ he said. ‘Uncle Pepperdine told me about you. You are the handsome one.’

Judith kissed him again. She had fallen in love with him on the spot.

‘Yes, I am your Aunt Judith, my dear,’ she said. ‘And I am very, very glad to see you—we are all glad.’

She still held him in her arms, looking at him long and hungrily. Miss Pepperdine came in, businesslike and bustling; she had lingered in the hall, ostensibly to give an order to the servant, but in reality to get rid of a tear or two.

‘Now, then, let me have a look at him,’ she said, and drew the boy out of Judith’s hands and turned him to the light. ‘Your Aunt Judith,’ she continued as she scanned him critically, ‘is the handsome one, as I heard you say just now—I’m the ugly one. Do you think you’ll like me?’

Lucian stared back at her with a glance as keen and searching as her own. He looked her through and through.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I like you. I think——’ He paused and smiled a little.

‘You think—what?’

‘I think you might be cross sometimes, but you’re good,’ he said, still staring at her.{33}

Miss Pepperdine laughed. Judith knew that she was conquered.

‘Well, you’ll find out,’ said Miss Pepperdine. ‘Now, then, off with your coat—are you hungry?’

‘No,’ answered Lucian. ‘I ate too much at Mrs. Trippett’s—English people have such big meals, I think.’

‘Give him a drop of something warm,’ said Mr. Pepperdine, entering with much rubbing of hands and stamping of feet. ‘’Tis cold as Christmas, driving through them woods ’twixt here and Wellsby.’

Miss Pepperdine set the brass pan on the fire, and presently handed Lucian a glass of hot milk, and produced an old-fashioned biscuit-box from the cupboard. The boy sat down near Judith, ate and drank, and looked about him, all unconscious that the two women and the man were watching him with all their eyes.

‘I like this room better than Mrs. Trippett’s,’ he said suddenly. ‘Hers is a pretty room, but this shows more taste. And all the furniture is Chippendale!’

‘Bless his heart!’ said Miss Pepperdine, ‘so it is. How did you know that, my dear?’

Lucian stared at her.

‘I know a lot about old furniture,’ he said; ‘my father taught me.’ He yawned and looked apologetic. ‘I think I should like to go to bed,’ he added, glancing at Miss Pepperdine. ‘I am sleepy—we have been travelling all day.’

Judith rose from her chair with alacrity. She was pining to get the boy all to herself.

‘I’ll take him to his room,’ she said. ‘Come along, dear, your room is all ready for you.’

The boy shook hands with Aunt Keziah. She kissed him again and patted his head. He crossed over to Mr. Pepperdine, who was pulling off his boots.

‘I’ll go riding with you in the morning,’ he said. ‘After breakfast, I suppose, eh?’

‘Ay, after breakfast,’ answered Mr. Pepperdine. ‘I’ll tell John to have the pony ready. Good-night,{34} my lad; your Aunt Judith’ll see you’re all comfortable.’

Lucian shook hands with his uncle, and went cheerfully away with Judith. Miss Pepperdine sighed as the door closed upon them.

‘He’s the very image of Cyprian Damerel,’ she said; ‘but he has Lucy’s eyes.’

‘He’s a fine little lad,’ said Mr. Pepperdine. ‘An uncommon fine little lad, and quite the gentleman. I’m proud of him.’

He had got into his slippers by this time, and he cast a longing eye at the spirit-case on the table. Miss Pepperdine rose, produced an old-fashioned pewter thimble, measured whisky into it, poured it into a tumbler, added lemon, sugar, and hot water, and handed it to her brother, who received it with an expression of gratitude, and sipped it critically. She measured a less quantity into two other glasses and mixed each with similar ingredients.

‘Judith won’t be coming down again,’ she said. ‘I’ll take her tumbler up to her room; and I’m going to bed myself—we’ve had a long day with churning. You’ll not want any news to-night, Simpson; it’ll keep till to-morrow, and there’s little to tell—all’s gone on right.’

‘That’s a blessing,’ said Mr. Pepperdine, stretching his legs.

Miss Pepperdine put away her knitting, removed the spirit-case into the cupboard, locked the door and put the key in her pocket, and took up the little tray on which she had placed the tumblers intended for herself and her sister. But on the verge of leaving the room she paused and looked at her brother.

‘We were glad you got there in time, Simpson,’ she said. ‘And you did right to bring the child home—it was the right thing to do. I hope Damerel has made provision for him?’

Mr. Pepperdine was seized with a mighty yawning.

‘Oh ay!’ he said as soon as he could speak. ‘The{35} lad’s all right, Keziah—all right. Everything’s in my hands—yes, it’s all right.’

‘You must tell me about it afterwards,’ said Miss Pepperdine. ‘I’ll go now—I just want to see that the boy has all he wants. Good-night, Simpson.’

‘Good-night, my lass, good-night,’ said the farmer. ‘I’ll just look round and be off to bed myself.’

Miss Pepperdine left the room and closed the door; her brother heard the ancient staircase creak as she climbed to the sleeping-chambers. He waited a few minutes, and then, rising from his chair, he produced a key from his pocket, walked over to the old bureau, unlocked a small cupboard, and brought forth a bottle of whisky. He drew the cork with a meditative air and added a liberal dose of spirit to that handed to him by his sister. He replaced the bottle and locked up the cupboard, poured a little more hot water into his glass, and sipped the strengthened mixture with approbation. Then he winked solemnly at his reflection in the old mirror above the chimney-piece, and sat down before the fire to enjoy his nightcap in privacy and comfort.