[p259] CHAPTER XXIV

AT THE SECOND FALL

Miss Bibby had prepared a delightful meal for her charges from the generous hamper the caddies carried down to her. Slices of chicken lay in nests of finely shredded lettuce with a delicate cream dressing lightly poured on top. A mountain of ruddy strawberries formed a centrepiece,—delicious and novel cakes made side dishes, jellies quivered and reflected on their sides the foaming waterfall. While here, there and everywhere were scattered evidences of the high skill chocolate manufacturers are attaining to—hatchets, saws, garden rakes, dolls’ tea-sets, animals of every description—all in the most delightful kind of chocolate.

The children buzzed round the tables like eager flies, but Miss Bibby would not have them begin until their host had paid the visit he had promised.

“But I may as well get mine over,” she said, “and then I can help all of you. And [p260] it would be too depressing for you, wouldn’t it, Paul, to see me eating what you think my poor meal while you revel in all these delicacies?” She got out her tiny basket and hastily emptied the contents of one of the packets on to a plate.

“Dear, darling Miss Bibby,” implored Lynn, clinging suddenly to her, “do eat something nice, just to-day. Oh do, do throw your horrid basket away, and eat really truly food for once.”

“I can’t, darling—I really can’t,” said Miss Bibby, quite distressed at having to refuse such a lovingly-put plea; “some other day,—next time you have a picnic. But not to-day.” She almost said “Not his food.”

“Here he comes, here he comes,” shrieked the children.

“Can I begin—can I have a lawberry?” cried Max, fairly dancing in his impatience.

Hugh came down wiping his hot face with his handkerchief. He took in the scene at a glance,—the eager children, waiting for him before they began, Miss Bibby seated at the adjacent slab table where she had piled the empty hampers, hastily eating a poor meal from a plate before her.

“Fall to, chickens,” said Hugh, and the four children made a glad, mad dash for their seats and with glowing eyes “fell to.”

Hugh went to the grey slab table.

[p261] “My dear Miss Bibby, am I always to be doing you an injury?” he said.

And at that instant there rolled away from Agnes Bibby’s soul all the heaviness that had oppressed it, and the sun shone out.

Of course, of course there was some mistake,—he had never meant to take credit for her work!

“Oh,” she gasped, “it was a mistake, of course. You—you sent them the wrong MS, that is all.” Why had no lightning flash of this possibility come to her before in her darkness?

Hugh looked at her in speechless admiration.

Then he spoke, and slowly. “I think,” he said, “you are without exception the most sensible woman I have ever met.”

And now there ran into Agnes Bibby’s face a flood of colour, quite as delicate and beautiful as that which sometimes stained the fresh young skins of Dora and Beatrice. She felt so guilty—she had thought—what had she not thought? She began to try to tell him she was not as sensible as he imagined, but he was so busy explaining to her how it all happened, and pressing the ten-guinea cheque upon her which he insisted her story had earned, that she simply was afforded no chance.

“But,” she said, pushing back the cheque [p262] gently—“I can only accept four guineas of this—that is the most my story would have earned. The rest your name commanded!”

“Nonsense, nonsense,” he said, “that Review always pays well, this is your own cheque, fairly earned; remember I have deprived you of all the glory of the story. For I know Wilkie too well to be able to hope that he will condescend to explain such a mistake in his columns.”

So Miss Bibby, dazzled, tucked the bit of pink paper away in her little basket.

“And now,” said Hugh, “will you just see if the children have enough to eat?”

“Oh dear, oh dear,” said Miss Bibby, fluttering up, “I really had forgotten them for the moment. I—I hope they have not made themselves ill.”

When she had obtained doubtful satisfaction on this point and turned her head again towards Hugh, she found him in the act of tossing all her packets of eatables one after the other over the edge of the rock where the water went plunging down to yet another fall.

“Hurrah! hurrah!” shouted Lynn, who had seen the act, “now she’ll have to eat some of our lovely things.”

“Have a lawberry, Miss Bibby, go on,” Max enjoined, his little mouth full of the delicious fruits and red juice dripping down his tunic.

[p263] “I—I—” began Miss Bibby.

But Hugh calmly tucked her hand in his arm and led her to the children’s table. “I am taking you into dinner, madam, and I insist that you eat everything I put before you.”

And she did—or almost. Hugh let the children revel as they liked in the good things, and assured their anxious guardian that he had chosen the lunch expressly from the point of view of suitability for the delicate digestions of children. And he laid down the maxim that appetite was the safest guide in the world, and when it said “More” no one but a Bumble would say it nay.

He ate excellently himself; he uncorked the champagne, and insisted upon her joining him with it; the sparkling stuff filled all her veins with fire. She ate chicken and found that it was good—and very good. She ate of other delicacies with which he plied her plates and found all her system rejoiced. In very truth she had lately pushed her diet theory so far that she was in a state of semi-starvation. She laughed, she chatted gaily, she made as entertaining a companion for that little lunch at the foot of the Fall as a man need wish to have. Hugh stared at her in amaze once or twice; it was as if a white tightly-closed rosebud had suddenly blossomed into beautiful bloom.

[p264] “Happiness,” said Hugh to himself, “that is all she needs, and the independence and responsibilities of a home of her own.”

The merry lunch progressed; the talk fell upon the author’s own books—and other books. Again Hugh was surprised—and delighted—at the lady’s discrimination and genuine culture. It was difficult to realize that any one who wrote so atrociously could think and speak so well.

“It’s like Kate’s bicycle,” he said to himself, “a single woman must break out somewhere. The probabilities are, if she had a home of her own, that she would never want to touch a pen again.”

Round and round the subject hovered his thoughts; this gentle, quiet companion for the autumn of his life—the thought was singularly attractive—infinitely more so than the thought of Dora or Bee that had always possessed also an element of distraction alarming to a man of staid habits.

He looked at her with new eyes.

She saw the look and drooped and flushed beneath it.

Then down came Kate, panting and puffing, but quite genial.

“A nice way to treat your guests, Sir,” she said, “do you know you have been away an hour? I don’t know what Dora and Bee can think of you.”

[p265] “By George,” said Hugh, “I had forgotten their very existence!”

“Well,” said Kate, sinking comfortably on a seat, “others have not been so forgetful. Two young men have arrived and have been helping us to eat up the picnic. I have forgotten their surnames, but the girls call them Charlie and Graham. Medical students, I find, who decided not to attend lectures, but to take a run up here for the day. Clears the brain, they told me. Heard at the hotel that their friends were at the Falls, so just ran down in the hope of stumbling across them. Stumbled across them in the ‘Lovers’ Nook.’”

“Ah,” said Hugh, “and do the little girls seem pleased to see them?”

“Well,” said Kate, “all I can say is one of them, Bee to be exact, has a ring on her finger that she did not start the day with. I discovered this by the painful efforts she made at lunch to hide it. And I expect by this time Dora’s finger can keep Bee’s company. They are plainly very masterful young men, and I fancy had determined that the mountain trip should settle their hearts as well as clear their brains.”

“Ah,” said Hugh, “I am delighted. I’ll go up presently and drink their healths—if there’s a bottle of champagne left. Any more news your end of the world?”

[p266] “Yes,” said Kate, and calmly helped herself to some jelly, “Effie has developed whooping cough while you have been away.”

“Oh, oh!” said Muffie, jumping with joy, “may we go up and play with them now?”

“Look here,” said Hugh, “I protest. This is too staggering. I may not know as much of medicine as this Charlie and Graham you speak of, but I do know a germ’s got to be incubated. There simply has not been time.”

“Oh, yes,” said Kate. “I have dragged it from Florence that they foregathered purposely some time ago with the laundress’s little boy who has the same complaint, but since it did not seem to have communicated itself to them they made another trial to-day. Well, Edith will have to leave the hotel now and take a cottage for them.”

The little Lomaxes were dancing with delight. Only Max was a little quiet. Teddie Gowan did everything a little better than he, Max, could do; it would be insupportable if Teddie were able soon to brag that he whooped louder than Max.

“Praps mine will get worser again,” he said hopefully.

“See here,” said Kate, “I must go back before much longer. Miss Bibby and I will pack up, Hugh, and you stay quietly at the tree ferns and mind the children.”

[p267] “No,” said Hugh gently, “you and the children pack up, K, and I will mind Miss Bibby.”

A delicate wave of colour pulsed over the woman’s face.

THE END.

Butler & Tanner The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.