Chapter XVIII: A Child Confidante

"MARJORY, you dear!" a soft voice said.

Julia had been for a good ramble, and was now on her way homeward, through the meadow which bounded the Rectory kitchen-garden. It was a low-lying meadow, sloping downward to the willow-fringed border of a small stream, and Julia went among the willows to the very edge, regardless of mud. She had on thick boots, and the trickle of water proved attractive. While standing there, bent forward in the attitude of observation, the lovingly-uttered words reached her from behind.

"Marjory, you dear!"

Julia straightened her back, and glanced round. She recognised Mittie's voice, of course, though the tender intonation was not usual.

Just beyond the willow-margin Mittie had taken up her position on a slight grassy rise, her ungloved hands clasped, her black eyes glowing, her rosy lips pouting as if in readiness for a kiss.

But as Julia turned Mittie's face fell.

"Oh, I thought it was Marjory! Aunt Julia, you'll go right into the water if you stay there. It's as slippery as anything."

So Julia found when she attempted to beat a retreat. The mud was in a half-dry slimy condition, not favourable to upward progress, and the child's prediction was very nearly fulfilled. Julia grasped at the willows, and had a struggle to reach firmer ground.

"What made you go down there, Aunt Julia? Marjory told me I mustn't never, if I was alone."

"I suppose I went because I was not under orders. What made you look so sorry to see me, Mittie?"

Children do not often mince matters, and the reply came unhesitatingly, "I wanted Marjory. She's such a dear."

"You ought to call her Miss Fitzalan."

"Marjory says I needn't."

"Well, it is getting late. You had better come home with me now."

"O no, I can't. I want to see my Marjory."

"But it is too damp for you here. I am sure your mother won't like it."

Julia said her say, and was about to go on, not in the least expecting compliance from the spoilt child. To her surprise a deep sigh sounded, and Mittie's hand stole into hers.

"Yes, I'll come. Though I do want most dreadfully to see my Marjory, but I promised I wouldn't be naughty."

Here was something new, certainly. Julia revolved the matter in her mind for some seconds, as they proceeded by the muddy footpath. Mittie's voice interrupted her cogitations.

"Don't you love Marjory, Aunt Julia?"

"I hardly know Miss Fitzalan," Julia answered.

"Well, I do. I love her, oh, ever so much. She is as good us can be, a great deal gooder than cousin Hermione, only Marjory won't let me say so, but I know it all the same. There's a funny old woman down in the village, and I went to see her with Marjory, and she calls cousin Hermione an angel. Isn't that funny? O yes, and so does old Sutton. He says cousin Hermione only wants wings. I did laugh so; I couldn't help laughing, though Marjory made a face at me to stop. It was so funny to think of cousin Hermione having wings; but I think Marjory is a great deal more like an angel than cousin Hermione, because you know she is so kind to everybody, and cousin Hermione isn't kind to everybody. She isn't kind to you, nor mother, nor me. I don't mean that she's 'xactly unkind, you know, but she makes up a sort of proper face, like that—" Mittie pursed her lips together and stared solemnly ahead for two seconds, "and she won't smile nor have any fun. When she speaks to the servants or anybody that's poor she smiles as pretty as can be, but not to us, Aunt Julia."

"Little girls must not make remarks on grown-up people," Julia replied, somewhat startled by the amount of infantine penetration.

Mittie looked thoughtful. Was she impressed by the rebuke?

"Aunt Julia," came at length, with portentous seriousness, "should you think the angels haven't never any fun?"

"Really, Mittie—"

"Well, I asked Marjory one day, 'cause I wanted to know. And Marjory said there was lots in the Bible about singing, and laughing, and being merry—only she said it has got to be the right sort. I suppose cousin Hermione hasn't learnt the right sort. I think she's dull, and Marjory says the angels are never dull. Marjory is dull sometimes, when her back aches so; but I do think she's a great great deal more like the angels than cousin Hermione. She's always so good and dear, and she never grumbles, and she does such lots for everybody, and she loves me, and I love her—heaps!"

Then, after a long pause—

"And Marjory is going to teach me how to be good too."

Julia's clasp tightened round the small fingers.

"How is she going to teach you, Mittie?"

"I don't know." Another pause. "I think Marjory is different from everybody. Don't you?"

"Different in what way?"

"Why—it makes her so sorry when she's done wrong, 'cause she can't bear to do what makes God sorry. Aunt Julia, I don't mean never to do wrong again. And that is why I'm coming home now, when you tell me."

"I am sure you will be a much happier little girl if you always do what is right," Julia said sedately, not prepared for the prompt return-question—

"Are you happy, Aunt Julia?"

Julia's heart throbbed in quick response. She could not say "Yes," and she would not say "No."

"What makes you ask?"

"'Cause you don't look as if you was—so very?"

"Perhaps I am not," Julia admitted. "But you mustn't repeat that to anybody."

"Not to my Marjory?"

"No, certainly not."

Mittie pressed her little self closer to Julia's side in affectionate wise. "I do love you to-day,—ever so much. And I know quite well why you're not happy. It isn't because you're naughty. You're good."

"No; not good. No; I wish I were."

"Then, Aunt Julia, if you aren't good, why don't you tell Jesus?"

The childish question, falling reverently from those rosy lips, dropped like dew of heaven upon the arid plain of Julia's heart. She said nothing for two or three seconds, only turned the words over in her mind. But a counter-query rose, and she spoke it out, "If I did—what then?"

"Why, Aunt Julia! Don't you know that everybody who came to Him was always healed? Marjory says so."

Julia offered no response. They walked through the village in silence which was broken only by an occasional remark from Mittie, scarcely heard. "Tell Jesus—why don't you tell Jesus?" sounded in Julia's ears like some exquisite refrain, and she would have liked to ask, "Why should I? Would He care to hear?" —but the utmost she could resolve to say was, after they had entered the Hall grounds, "Sometimes you can talk to me about what you learn from Miss Fitzalan."

"Oh, may I? Yes, I'll talk lots. Marjory won't mind."

"Marjory need not know. I don't want you to be chattering about me to her—making her think that I am not happy," Julia said, with questionable prudence, considering the age of her little companion. "Mittie, what did you mean just now by saying that you knew quite well why—"

Julia hesitated how to express herself, but Mittie caught up the sentence with cheerful promptitude.

"Oh, I only meant, Aunt Julia, that when you're not happy it's because of Uncle Harvey being such a naughty man."

"Nonsense, Mittie! What are you thinking about?" cried Julia, indignant at the suggestion.

"I know! Old Sutton told me yesterday."

"Told you what?"

"About Uncle Harvey. He's got all cousin Hermione's money, and it is very wicked of him." Julia was for the moment voiceless, and Mittie proceeded calmly, "Old Sutton says cousin Hermione bears it like an angel, and everybody is so very sorry for her, and nobody likes Uncle Harvey. And I don't like him neither, not near so much as I did, and I think I won't let him kiss me so often."

"Mittie! for shame! You don't know what you are saying!" Julia panted rather than said. She could almost have shaken the child, yet she restrained herself, not even setting free the little hand which she held. Mittie was unaware of her wrath.

"But old Sutton told me, Aunt Julia, and he knows. Don't it make you sorry, Uncle Harvey behaving like that?"

"Mittie, listen to me!" Julia turned upon the child a livid face, spotted with red. She could hardly hold in her passion. "Listen to me! You are never never to say such things about your uncle—never! They are false and cruel. Sutton has been talking wicked untruths. He must be a very bad old man. Uncle Harvey is a dear good uncle to you, and I wonder you are not ashamed to listen to anything against him. The money is his rightly—not Hermione's. It never was or could be Hermione's. The estate was entailed; which of course you can't understand; but it means that Hermione has no sort of right to the place. Your uncle gives her a home, and he is not obliged to do even that—it is all kindness. Will you remember what I am saying?"

Mittie might be in no danger of forgetting, but perhaps she was not fully convinced.

"Sutton said he knew quite well," she murmured.

"If Sutton puts such notions into your head, we shall have to forbid you ever to talk to him. I am sure Miss Fitzalan would not be pleased. Did she hear all this?"

Mittie shook her head.

"I haven't seen my Marjory since Sutton told me. But Marjory does love cousin Hermione, oh so dearly, and she is so dreadfully sorry for her."

"Hermione has lost her grandfather, and of course everybody is sorry. But this about her money is all nonsense. Mind, Mittie, you are not to talk so again."

Mittie seemed to acquiesce in a childish fashion, and on entering the house she ran away. Julia could not resolve to enter the drawing-room at once. She was scared and angry still with the shock of that accusation. It was unendurable that people in the place should be saying such things of her husband. And if the notion were widely spread, how was it to be met? Shutting Mittie's lips would not shut the lips of other people.

Ten minutes later she stole down to the library, believing that Harvey would be there, and her belief proved correct. A small lamp, lighted, stood on the escritoire, and Harvey sat before it, writing letters. Papers strewn carelessly about spoke of a less orderly nature in the present than in the past owner of Westford. As Julia went in he glanced up with a smile, his usual greeting, and then perhaps he noticed something in her face not ordinary, for he asked at once, "Anything gone wrong?"

"I don't know whether I ought to tell you."

"Nonsense. Tell me, of course. Francesca, to wit? Or is it Mittie?"

Julia sat down, just beyond the corner of the escritoire, looking straight at him across it.

"Not Francesca, but Mittie," she said. "I don't mean that Mittie is to blame. She is allowed to chatter with everybody. Only think of the old gardener at the Rectory talking to that child about us—about you—"

"He is welcome!" Harvey said carelessly, as his wife hesitated. The thought of Hermione was not at all in his mind just then.

"You have not heard yet. Talking about Hermione, and actually telling Mittie that you had taken possession of the money which ought to belong to Hermione."

Julia stopped, staring at her husband with wide-open eyes. She had never seen him wear exactly such an expression before as he wore now. The words were evidently startling and unexpected. His face hardened, each feature partaking of a general rigidity, and his colour distinctly lessened.