Coelebs: The Love Story of a Bachelor

by F. E. Mills Young

recognition, and then, as though suddenly reminded ofhaving seen it somewhere amid other surroundings, planted, indeed, in analtogether different setting, they wandered back uncertainly and restedwith a puzzled scrutiny on the delicate profile that was half turnedfrom him. Something in the rebellious wave of the brown hair, somethingin the buoyant grace of the girl's carriage, appeared vaguely familiar.And then suddenly the stranger turned and faced him squarely, and a pairof darkly grey eyes looked for a second into his and betrayed a flash ofrecognition. The faintest of smiles lit their grey depths. She wastalking to the vicar, and she turned to him and said something in a lowvoice, as a result of which the vicar summoned Mr Musgrave to his sideand presented him, and--quite unnecessarily, John Musgrave thought--lefthim alone with this exceedingly womanly looking, unwomanly young person.

  As Mr Musgrave beheld her now, suitably attired in an exceedinglyelegant yet simple white dinner dress, he found it difficult toassociate this dainty person with the dreadful vision in blue overallsstanding at the top of a long ladder and whistling to the bull-dog. Heshuddered when he recalled that sight. How could any refined girl beguilty of such immodest conduct?

  But the person in the overalls had done him a service. He felt that itwould be only courtesy to acknowledge it. But did not courtesy demandrather that he should ignore that painful episode? It was possible thatthe girl would be displeased to be reminded of that occasion. MrMusgrave felt so embarrassed, and was so little successful in concealingthis emotion, that the girl, becoming conscious of it, imagined that hewas shy. She promptly "started in," as she would have phrased it, toset him at his ease.

  "I'm quite in love with Moresby," she said brightly. "It's theprettiest spot I've happened upon so far. These old places which havefallen asleep are restful. I was just asking Mr Errol when you arrivedto whom that beautiful garden belonged, with the old gabled housestanding back from the road, and he replied, `Here's the owner.' When Ilooked round and saw you I remembered your face. Diogenes introduced usinformally, if you recall the afternoon you called here. He is adreadfully pushing person, Diogenes; but he's a dear when you know him."

  "I daresay," Mr Musgrave answered, correctly surmising that Diogeneswas the bull-dog. "But I dislike dogs."

  "I should never have thought that," replied the girl, looking faintlysurprised; "because Diogenes likes you. He never speaks to people hedoesn't like; and dogs as a rule know at once when people are notsympathetic. He quite gushed about you after you had gone. I won'ttell him he has made a mistake, it might hurt his feelings. And afterall you are possibly mistaken yourself. You'd love dogs, I expect, ifyou once allowed yourself to take an interest in them. They are likechildren; one has to get accustomed to them."

  "On the occasion you refer to," said Mr Musgrave tactfully, "I was veryobliged to you for coming to my assistance. I confess to having feltdistinctly nervous of Diogenes."

  "Most people are," she said. "He looks so ferocious, and he's noisy.But that was only good-tempered teasing. He always helps me when I amgardening, and he enjoys thinking he is keeping intruders off. You mustcome and see the gardens some day. Mr Errol tells me you aredreadfully learned about flowers."

  "I am interested in flowers," John Musgrave allowed modestly.

  "So am I--enormously. I just love having this big place to experimentwith. And my aunt is such a dear; she gives me a free hand." Shelaughed delightfully, showing a set of very pretty teeth. "A free handconstitutes also unlimited funds, and that is such a help in the makingof a beautiful garden."

  "I should have thought," Mr Musgrave said, "that the making of a gardenwas unnecessary where a garden already existed. I understood thegrounds were always kept up."

  "They have been kept from neglect," she answered. "But there is a lotto be done. We have got to bring it all up to date."

  "Oh?" he said, and repressed a shudder. He had never liked thatexpression; since his acquaintance with Mrs Chadwick he had grown toactively dislike it. "I am old-fashioned, I suppose," he added. "Iprefer things left as they are. The associations which cling aboutfamiliar things are more beautiful, in my opinion, than change. Nooutlay of money can improve an old-world garden."

  "The introduction of a quantity of patent manure into the ground helpsconsiderably in its productiveness," she answered practically. "Waittill the summer comes. When you see the glory of bloom then you'lladmit the utility of money. I should like some time to come and seeyour garden. Do you work in it yourself?"

  "I!" Mr Musgrave appeared taken aback at the suggestion that he shouldlabour among his borders, which were noted in Moresby for their beauty."I supervise the man, of course," he said.

  "Oh!" she returned in a tone of commiseration for the pleasure that hemissed. "Supervising is tame. When one feels the soil with one's handsone learns what it means to love it, and every little root one buries inthe mould becomes as a dear child. You are only scientificallyinterested in flowers, I suspect. I've learnt the science of them, too;but I am trying to forget all that and acquire practical knowledge.Imagine a mother bringing up her child scientifically! I know somepeople consider it a wise plan, but every child, like every plant, hasits little peculiarities, and needs to be made a separate study."

  "You are very young," Mr Musgrave remarked, looking into the clear eyeswith a shade of disapproval in his own, "to entertain views on thesesubjects."

  To his surprise she laughed.

  "I'm twenty-eight," she answered frankly. "If one hasn't any views atthat age it is safe to predict one will never have any. At twenty-eightlots of women are engaged in experimenting practically in the upbringingof children. I have nephews and nieces ranging up to ten."

  Mr Musgrave was by now firmly convinced that he did not like this youngperson. He was quite sure that working in overalls was not good for themind. And yet, when he came to reflect upon what she had said later, hefailed to discover what there had been to object to so strongly in hertalk. But he had taken a strong objection to the tone of herconversation. Could it be that he was not merely old-fashioned, butslightly priggish? Mr Musgrave did not like to think of himself as aprig. It is a term which Englishmen affect to despise. Neverthelessthere are a few prigs in the world. Mr Musgrave was not a prig, but hecame perilously near to being one at times.

  A move in the direction of the dining-room put an end to their talk.Mr Musgrave was paired off with his legitimate dinner partner, aRushleigh lady, the importance of whose social position as a member ofone of the oldest families in the neighbourhood rendered it seeminglyunnecessary for her to support the effort of being even ordinarilyconversational. John Musgrave knew her intimately, and was thereforenot unduly depressed by her long silences and her chilly acceptance ofhis stereotyped phrases in an attempt to sustain a courteous soliloquyduring the courses.

  Farther down, on the opposite side of the table, the grey-eyed girl waschatting animatedly with a young medical man, also from Rushleigh, whoappeared, John Musgrave observed with a sense of feeling suddenly boredand out of tune with his surroundings, to be enjoying himself hugely.Mr Musgrave had always understood that young people did not enjoydinner-parties; as a young man he had found them extraordinarily dull.But this young man was apparently enjoying both the food and thecompany. The grey-eyed girl was not, however, discussing with himpatent manures, or other horticultural matters. At the moment when JohnMusgrave observed them they were engaged in a flippant conversationwhich the young man characterised as psychological, but which JohnMusgrave would not have dignified by such a term. It was the kind ofagreeable nonsense which is pleasing only to youth.

  The young man considered the grey-eyed girl ripping. The grey-eyedgirl--who was called Peggy Annersley--referred to him in her thoughts asa sport. Mr Musgrave would not have approved of either expression.The vocabulary of youth is uncouth.

  In the drawing-room, following the long dinner, there was a littlemusic, under cover of which many of the guests took refuge in silence,relieved that t
he necessity to make conversation was temporarilyrelaxed. The business of enjoying one's self is a strenuous matter.

  Mr Musgrave, moved by a stern sense of duty and the conviction of whatwas correct, went from one group of acquaintances to another andexchanged civilities with all. Peggy watched his conscientious progressthrough the room with mischievous, comprehending eyes. He was thequaintest thing in Moresby, she reflected, where everything was quaint.

  Later, when the guests had departed, in response to a question put byMrs Chadwick in reference to him, she stated that he seemed quite anice old thing. Mrs Chadwick surveyed her niece thoughtfully, and thenglanced at her own reflection in a mirror.

  "Should you describe me as old?" she asked.

  "You!" the girl laughed scoffingly. "You dear! What a question?"

  "I am thirty-nine," Mrs Chadwick said. "And John Musgrave is forty."

  The girl looked unimpressed.

  "I daresay. But no one would consider John's years. He is fossilised,"she said.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN.

  Miss Peggy Annersley was a niece of Mr Chadwick, one of a family offour girls whom Fate had deprived of their mother in early childhood,and, as though repenting the evil turn she had wrought them, hadremedied the ill as far as she was able by subsequently removing theirfather also from a world in which, though undoubtedly ornamental, he wasnot of the slightest use. Having freed them thus far from the onlyobstacle in the path of any possible success which might fall to theirlot, she threw them with light-hearted irresponsibility and an air ofhaving finished with them, if not finally, at least for the time being,into the care of the wealthy uncle who, being childless, was naturallythe person best fitted to undertake the charge of four well-grown,unruly, under-educated girls. Mr Chadwick sent them forthwith to agood boarding-school, and, like Fate, having disposed of themtemporarily, dismissed them from his thoughts. But Mr Chadwick waspossessed of a wife, and that wife was possessed of ideas regarding therace in general and the feminine half of it in particular; she thereforeshouldered his neglected responsibilities and made the education ofthose four girls her special study.

  Mr Chadwick's idea had been to educate them decently, as he expressedit, and give them a small but sufficient income on which to liveindependently, and leave them to worry out the problem of life forthemselves. Mrs Chadwick objected to this plan on the plea that it wascharity, and charity, save in exceptional circumstances, was humiliatingto the individual and unsatisfactory, inasmuch as it retarded the mentaland moral growth, and disorganised the social scheme.

  Therefore each girl was educated as a boy might be, with a knowledgethat she must earn her livelihood and had therefore better develop anytalent and specialise in the choice of a profession.

  The arrangement had worked well. The eldest girl, who, like her father,was ornamental rather than useful, had specialised matrimonially andleft the schoolroom for a home of her own, and was very well satisfiedwith her lot. The second girl had become a medical student; and,showing marked ability in the profession she had chosen, took her M.D.and subsequently practised successfully as a doctor in a busy Midlandtown. The third girl, who was Peggy, had taken up gardening with equalaptitude, and was employed by her aunt for two reasons: the first beingthat Mrs Chadwick preferred a woman gardener; the second andall-important reason being that she was very fond of Peggy and wished tokeep her with her. The fourth girl was an architect, and, being stillquite young, was as yet on the lowest rung of the ladder. She was,however, keen, and Mrs Chadwick hoped that she would become an ornamentto her profession in time.

  Save for Peggy and the eldest girl, who was a beauty, looks were not thechief asset of the family, so that for the doctor and the youngarchitect it was more expedient that they should do well in the workthey had taken up.

  Mrs Chadwick was on the whole very satisfied with the result of hereffort on their behalf. Next to having girls of her own, four nieceswith an average share of brains provided admirable material for thedevelopment of her feminist schemes. It afforded her immensegratification to watch their progress, and behold, instead of fourhelpless girls keeping house in bored inactivity on other people'smoney, four--or rather three--very capable young persons equal tofighting their own way through life, and privileged to enjoy the breadof independence. If any girl imagines there is a better lot in life sheis mistaken. No occupation unfits a woman for the _role_ of wife andmother; it gives her rather a greater right to bring children into theworld, when she is able to support them if necessary. Mr Musgravewould not have shared this opinion; but Musgravian ideas fill almshousesand orphanages and are responsible for a great deal of genteel and quiteneedless poverty. That one half--and that the larger half--of the raceshould depend for its existence on the other half is absurd.

  Peggy Annersley was a young woman of very independent spirit. Had shewished, she might have made her occupation as gardener at the Hall asinecure. She could have given her orders to those under her and haveenjoyed her leisure in any way that appeared agreeable to herself. MrsChadwick imposed no conditions or restraints. But Peggy drew a handsomewage, and she liked to fed when she received her monthly cheque that shehad earned it; therefore she donned overalls and spoilt her hands, or,as she would have expressed it, hardened them, in the conscientiousfulfilment of her duties. She put in her eight hours a day, except inthe winter when work was slack, and insisted upon her half-day offduring the week. There was only one matter in which she enjoyed anyadvantage over the rest--she was not liable to dismissal.

  On her half-day off Peggy usually went for a walk accompanied byDiogenes. She resolutely refused to give up these half-days to payingcalls with her aunt or helping her to entertain visitors. If she wereimperatively needed for social duties these had to be worked in in heremployers' time. Peggy was a veritable Trades Union in herself, andrefused absolutely to sacrifice her off-time to any object that did notconform with her ideas of pleasurable relaxation.

  Thus it fell out that when the guests who had participated in theChadwicks' hospitality were, with rigid observance of rule,punctiliously performing their duty in the matter of an after-dinnercall, Miss Annersley, in defiance of her aunt's remonstrance, insistedon going off as usual with the faithful Diogenes. Mrs Chadwick wasvexed. Mr Chadwick had that morning met John Musgrave in the village,and had returned with the news that Mr Musgrave had mentioned that itwas his purpose to call that same afternoon. Mrs Chadwick for someinexplicable reason desired Peggy's support on this occasion, andappeared disproportionately annoyed when Peggy departed on her walk andleft her aunt to receive Mr Musgrave alone. Mr Chadwick was present,certainly, but the presence of Mr Chadwick could not further heramiable plans for the modernising of John Musgrave.

  It was a wild, bright day with a touch of frost in the air, and as shewalked briskly across the fields the sun and the wind and the cold airbrought a glorious colour into Peggy's cheeks and lent a sparkle to hereyes. It was regrettable that there was no one there to note thesethings except Diogenes and a few cows. Peggy was not alarmed of cows;but Diogenes, who was in a boisterous mood, caused her considerableanxiety through displaying a desire to chase these unoffending animals,resenting which, they acted in a manner unseemly in their breed. In onefield there were bulls. They were young bulls, and harmless; butDiogenes excited them, and when they began to chase Diogenes he feignednervousness and sought shelter behind his mistress's skirts, Peggy,feeling nervous without feigning it, took refuge in the hedge. Then itwas that she became aware of a small bearded man, who, having justclimbed the stile, walked fearlessly among the herd, which made waybefore him as before the progress of some royal personage and allowedhim to pass unharmed. The small bearded man stopped when he was abreastof Peggy, and stared up at her where she crouched in the hedge withcritical, contemptuous eyes.

  "Do you like milk?" he asked unexpectedly.

  "Yes," Peggy answered, puzzled to understand why this person, whom shenow recognised for the sexton, if he wished to address her s
hould opencivilities with such an unusual remark; why, too, he should seem upsetwith her reply. He looked almost angry.

  "Do you like beef?" he proceeded, putting her through this catechism asthough he were playing a serious kind of new game.

  "Yes," Peggy repeated with increasing wonder.

  The little man looked really fierce now. She was relieved to haveDiogenes at hand; this person was more terrifying than the bulls.

  "Then wot are you afeard of? Get down out of thicky hedge. They won't'urt 'ee."

  Peggy felt indignant; the little man was quite unnecessarily rude.

  "I do not care to watch milk churning itself in the open," she retorted;"and I prefer beef cooked."

  Robert appeared for the moment at a loss for a suitable response. Helooked at her sourly, and from her to the dog.

  "You shouldn' take that there toy terrier across the fields, if you'mafeard o' cattle," he remarked. "'E's more mischeevous than wot theybe. Get down out o' thicky 'edge, I tell 'ee. I'll see 'ee across."

  "Why didn't you say that in the beginning?" Peggy said, flashing asmile at him and slipping nimbly down from her position of doubtfulsecurity. "That's exactly what I was wishing you would do."

  "I seen a woman orched once," Robert was beginning conversationally, asthey walked along together, when Peggy interrupted him to inquire what"orched" meant.

  "Why, bein' tossed, o' course," Robert