Chapter XVI: Jack’s Trouble

WITHOUT thinking, I strolled some distance, till almost out of sight of my husband. Nobody else was near. And all at once I saw on the grass, a good way from the road, a prostrate figure,—somebody lying flat and still.

A tired excursionist, was my first thought; a sick man, my second; somebody in trouble, my third. For I noticed a slight writhing movement, suggestive of distress, and a low sound, much like a smothered sob, reached me.

I went slowly nearer, without knowing why, without thinking what I meant to do. And my attention was caught by a certain familiar look in the outline of the shoulders. I stood still, gazed hard for an instant, and then was kneeling beside the prostrate figure in alarm.

“Why, Jack! Jack?” I said breathlessly. “Jack, has anything happened? are you ill?”

“I wish I were,” groaned Jack.

“My dear boy, what is wrong?” I asked, relieved to hear him speak, yet frightened still.

“Nothing. I mean, nothing you can help. Mother, please go.”

“But you will tell me what it is,” I entreated. For hitherto Jack had always turned to me in trouble.

“No,—no use,—nobody can help me,—I only want to be let alone.” And then he actually broke quite down, and sobbed,—great strong fellow that he was. I put my hand on his, but he shook it off, as if hardly able to endure a touch.

“Jack, if anybody can comfort you, don’t you think your mother can?”

“Nobody can,” repeated the poor boy. “Mother, please leave me alone,—just a few minutes. I’ll come soon. I’ll meet you at the landing.”

“And you won’t tell me what is wrong?”

Jack rolled over and hid his face. “I’ve no hope of Maimie,” he muttered. “There! you have it now. I can’t talk about it.”

“No hope of Maimie!” I repeated, at the moment stupidly not understanding. Did he mean that he thought her ill,—hopelessly ill? This absurd idea actually occurred to my mind first.

“Yes,—no hope,” repeated Jack fiercely. “Isn’t that plain enough? She doesn’t care for me,—any more than for anybody else. O Maimie!”

The choking sobs came back. What could I do? To leave him was impossible; yet I hardly dared speak or touch him. After a minute I ventured to suggest,—“You are both so young,—Maimie almost a child.”

“Oh, I thought you were gone,” Jack said, with a kind of gasp, and he sat up, then started to his feet. “Mother, you needn’t say anything about me to the others. I’ll be at the landing—” and he rushed away.

Why Jack had come to Bushey Park at all, when he could not bear to be spoken to, was rather a mystery to me, since he knew we should be all there. But it was just like his simple and impulsive way of doing things. Probably he could have given no clear reason himself.

No others of our party were yet in sight. As I walked slowly back towards Robert, going through a motherly heart-ache on behalf of my boy, Maimie suddenly emerged from some trees, and flew rather than ran towards me.

“Where are the others?” I asked, surprised at her being alone, as well as struck by her crimson cheeks and bright eyes.

“Oh, they are somewhere,” she said breathlessly.

“I have not seen Cherry and the boys for some time. Cress is coming—and I don’t know where Jack is. Jack ran away from us, and I ran away from Cress. O please, Aunt Marion, I want so much to tell you something.”

“Tell me now,” I said, and I drew her arm within my own. “We will go for a little walk along the avenue. Uncle Robert is asleep, you see.”

She held my arm tightly, clinging with the air of one who needed protection.

“It has been such nonsense,” she said, breathless still. “I want to tell you everything at once, and then you won’t have any false ideas about me,—mistaken ideas, I mean. For indeed it has not been my fault. I never dreamt of such a thing. Why, I’m only seventeen to-day.”

“Yes, Maimie,” I said anxiously.

“Cress has been so absurd all the afternoon,—wanting to be by side, and trying to throw poor Jack into the shade. So I talked more to Jack than to him, and that, I suppose, vexed Cress. And at last it came to—to—I hardly know how to explain. It would take so long to tell exactly all that passed. But Cress said something about my being by-and-by ‘his little wife.’ Jack laughed, and then Cress fired up, and said Jack might laugh if he chose, but it was no laughing matter, for I should be his wife.”

“Rather cool of Cress,” I said soothingly, for Maimie trembled like a leaf.

“Yes,—so I thought. And I said to him, ‘I am not to be disposed of quite so easily, I can tell you, Cress.’ And he actually said,—I know you like me well enough, and I mean you to be mine some day. I’ll never give you any peace till you say ‘Yes.’”

“And your answer?” I asked.

“I said I wished he wouldn’t be so ridiculous. As if we couldn’t be brothers and sisters all together, without such nonsense! Cherry was not at hand to help me, and Cress kept saying again and again,—‘But you like me,—I know you like me,—say you like me, Maimie.’ And I said at last,—’ Yes, of course I like you,—and I like a great many other people too. I should like you much better if you did not tease me like this.’ And he said,—‘It isn’t teasing, Maimie. I want you to say that you like me best,—better than anybody,—better than Jack.’”

“What did Jack say?” I asked.

“He said,—‘Do you, Maimie?’ in a low voice. And I said,—‘No, of course I don’t. I like you all,—Jack and Cress and Owen and all of you.’ I am afraid Jack didn’t like the way I spoke, he turned so white, and looked vexed. But what else could I say?”

“It was the best answer you could make, I dare say,” I said.

“Of course it was, because it was the true one,” Maimie said, with spirit. “Cress went on teasing me, and wanted to know if I was quite sure I liked him exactly in the same way as Jack. I said,—‘No, because Jack is my pupil as well as my brother, and I am proud of his spelling.’ And Jack looked graver than ever. And Cress said,—‘It doesn’t matter. You’ll never marry anybody but me, Maimie.’ And I said, ‘Then I shall not marry at all, for I should never think of marrying you.’ I am afraid I was getting a little angry, for it really was too bad of him. I heard Jack say softly,—‘Or me?’ and I wanted not to take any notice, but Cress said, ‘You’ll not marry Jack!’ in a sort of threatening tone. And I said,—‘I certainly shall not ask your leave, Cress. But I don’t mean to marry you or Jack or anybody. The whole thing is ridiculous. I love Aunt Marion more than anybody else in the world, and I don’t want ever to leave her.’”

“Thank you, Maimie,” I said, and I gave her a kiss; yet my heart was sore for poor Jack.

“Then you don’t think I answered too sharply. It was so provoking of them both. Jack must have been vexed, for he went straight off and left us. And Cress began upon me again, so I ran away in another direction and left him. I lost my way in the grounds, or I should have been here much sooner. I did so want to tell you first, before Cress.”

“I do not suppose Cress will say much to me,” I remarked. “He has behaved like a very foolish boy.”

“Yes, foolish,” repeated Maimie. “Just think of our ages—eighteen and seventeen. It is too absurd. There are all sorts of things I want to do and to learn before I even think of marrying.”

“I could never advise an early marriage upon poor means,” I said, speaking out of sad experience.

“No, indeed. And why should I? I am so happy as things are. I do wish Cress had let me alone. Cress, of all people! Of course I like him—as a boy, but that is all. I think a girl at seventeen is much older than a boy at eighteen or nineteen. And if I were to marry I must have somebody to look up to,—not a mere boy. Besides, they are both much too young to know their minds yet. Either of them might like me well enough now, and yet not care for me at all a few years hence. Do you think I did rightly?”

“Quite rightly,” I said. “Feeling as you do, I don’t see what other answer was possible.”

“Only they are your boys and I can’t bear to give pain to anybody belonging to you. But it always seems to me as if marriage were such a very solemn thing. To promise always to love and obey another, always to live with him, always to honour him and put him first,—oh, I couldn’t, unless I felt so very very sure of what he was. I should want such a good, good man, and so kind and pleasant,—somebody whom I could really love better than all the world beside. And, of course, it would have to be somebody I could look up to,—somebody cleverer and wiser than myself.”

Poor Jack!

“I don’t mean that I ever have thought very much about it,” she pursued. “Only, of course, I know the sort of people I like. Cress would never never do. He is kind to me, but he thinks much too much about his food, and his comforts, and having his own way. O no; I couldn’t be the wife of a person like Cress. I shouldn’t be able to look up to him.”

“You could look up to Jack more than to Cress,” I ventured to suggest.

“Yes,—perhaps. He is strong, and always kind. O yes, one does respect Jack’s strength, and the use he makes of it. Poor Jack is really good, I am sure; only he is rather slow over books. I can do a long sum in a quarter the time he takes.”

Alas, it was too true. And Maimie was devoted to books, and thought so much of knowledge.

“Anyhow, I don’t mean to think about marrying yet,” she said brightly. “Not for years to come. I shan’t mind now I have told you. Cress must learn to hold his tongue. I believe he was half in joke all the time.”

Cress might have been; but I knew it was not so with Jack.

We had gone some distance, and now we turned, Maimie continuing in the same strain, flushed and bright-eyed still. Cherry and the two small boys came to meet us, and Cress was sitting beside his father, looking moody and dismal. Poor silly boy! What could have become of Jack? That question rose next. I said in a matter-of-fact tone, “Jack was here before you all came back. He will meet us at the landing.”

Then Robert woke up, and we began to talk of going home.

Cress evidently wanted to show Maimie by his manner that he was very wretched. But Maimie hardly looked at him, and clung persistently to my side. On the border of the river we found Jack, looking so white and spiritless, that Cherry asked if he had a headache, and Maimie gave a guilty start, as if she felt herself to blame.

The return trip was not so cheery as the morning row had been. Jack worked at his oar persistently, saying little; while Cress chose to consider himself too tired for exertion, putting off his share of work upon other people.

Cherry was the merriest of the party, in her quiet way, but gradually she woke up to the fact of something unusual, and became silent like the rest. It was not till we had left the boat and were walking home that I found an opportunity to whisper a few words as to what had passed. She said only, “O dear, how silly! And poor Jack’s day is all spoilt!”

“We mustn’t let Maimie think we pity Jack too much,” I said. “I want her to feel perfectly free; and they are so absurdly young at present. The less we make of the affair, the better.”

“But it is no mere fancy with Jack,” Cherry said; and I felt sure from her manner that Jack had already confided to her his hopes for the future. “Mother she will learn to love him some day; don’t you think so?”

“I don’t know at all,” I said. “Maimie loves him now as a cousin,—as a brother, perhaps. But whether he could ever be anything more to her is another question.”

“Our dear good Jack,” Cherry said warmly.

“Yes; but Maimie is clever, and Jack is not. And for a wife to have more brains than her husband is—well, not always a thing to be desired.”

“O mother, you to say that of Jack,” Cherry murmured reproachfully. And then we were interrupted.

It was almost dark by the time home was reached. Jack opened the door with his latch-key, and disappeared. Maimie had been walking with my husband, and they came in close after Cherry and me. We made our way straight into the sitting-room.

“Cherry, do pull up the blind,” I said, “We must have lights directly. I suppose supper will soon be ready. You told the girl to lay the table, did you not?”

“How do you do, Maimie?” a man’s voice said.

I don’t think I am given to screaming, but I did scream then. I was dreadfully startled, never dreaming that anybody was in the room. Cherry had just pulled up the blind, and happily she had presence of mind not to let it drop.

A stout man with a black beard rose out of an easy chair, where he seemed to have been much at home, and came a step towards us. It was too dusk for any recognition of features.

“How do you all do?” he said again. “You don’t expect me, of course, Maimie,—why, how the child has grown! Much obliged to you all for giving her a home at a pinch. Well, Maimie, don’t you know me?”

“Father!” Maimie said hesitatingly. She did not greet him with delight, as she would once have done. His long neglect had naturally chilled her feelings of affection.

“To be sure! One would think you had lost your memory. It’s rather dark, certainly; but I knew you, child, in a moment. Haven’t you a kiss for me? Well, Robert, here I am at last.”