Read Ebook: The doings of Doris by Giberne Agnes

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Ebook has 2481 lines and 75909 words, and 50 pages

CHAPTER

THE DOINGS OF DORIS

The Owner of Clover Cottage

"A DELIGHTFUL man!" Mrs. Brutt declared. "Absolutely charming! Handsome--accomplished--clever--fascinating!" She hung impressively upon each adjective in turn. "Fortune has showered her gifts upon him. Has simply showered them."

Mrs. Brutt viewed her present companion as the reverse of charming. But to one who hated solitude, anybody was better than nobody; and she had seized a chance to inveigle him indoors, much against his will.

"Showered--gifts--" he repeated vaguely, his one thought being how to escape from durance vile.

"Ah, your masculine mind is occupied with weightier matters!" --and she rippled into laughter. She had a habit, not agreeable to all hearers, of interlarding her speech with ripples.

"I was speaking of the Squire. As I say--a most attractive character. So good of him to come and take tea with me in my humble cot! Overwhelmed as he must be with engagements! I assure you, I appreciate the compliment."

Mr. Winton's grunt might or might not have spelt acquiescence.

"And his niece--such an attractive woman! So distingu?e! That word does just exactly describe her. Not that I have seen so much of her as of her uncle." She had met Mr. Stirling three times, and Miss Stirling once. "But enough to realise what a perfectly unusual character hers is."

The Rector grunted anew. He never discussed one parishioner with another; and he hated gossip with a deadly hatred.

"So touching to see his devotion to her--really quite beautiful! I am told that she has been everything to him since his poor wife's death-- ten years ago, wasn't it? A great sufferer she must have been--and such a sweet woman. Everybody says so. And now he just leans on his dear niece. So touching, isn't it?"

No reply. Grim silence.

"Then, too, there is Mr. Hamilton Stirling--a most interesting man. So full of information. Really, it is a privilege to come across a mind like his. Do tell me--is it true that he is the heir to all this property--supposing, of course, that the Squire never marries again?" She rippled anew. "First-cousin once removed, isn't he?"

"Yes," was the least that the Rector could say.

Mrs. Brutt understood that she would get nothing out of him, and she resented the fact. Her eyes surveyed with veiled criticism his ungainly figure, broad and heavy in make, thrown as a blur against a background of dainty colouring. He wore a rough workaday apron, suggestive of carpentering, over an ancient coat; both being, under supposition, never seen outside his shed. But when pressed for time, he would steal across for a word with his friend the carpenter; and more than once Mrs. Brutt had captured him en route in this unclerical guise. He had begun ruefully to see his own lost liberty, now that a talkative lady, with leisure for everybody's concerns, had chosen to plant herself within a stone's throw of the Rectory back-garden gate.

Hitherto the back lane had been little frequented, and he could do as he chose, with small fear of detection. Though Lynnbrooke had become a town, its growth had been mainly towards other points of the compass, leaving the old parish church and the original village almost untouched.

But Mrs. Brutt, coming for a week's change to the Inn, took a fancy to a couple of low-rented cottages, standing empty, and decided to make them her home. She had them transformed into a cosy dwelling, sent for her furniture, and settled down therein, with much flourish of trumpets.

For a while she was too busy to give heed to aught beyond the process of settling in. That ended, she found herself with superabundant time at her disposal, and during the last two months her presence had been in the Rector's eyes a standing grievance. He never could pass down the lane without a risk of being waylaid. Whatever else Mrs. Brutt might be doing, she seemed to have one eye permanently glued to her front window.

Capture on Monday afternoon was an aggravated offence. He counted Monday his own, free for the dear delights of his carpentering shed. So, though he came in because she insisted, he chafed under the necessity. Where she put him he remained, watching for the first chance to get away. Deep-set eyes under shaggy eyebrows rebelled; and the solid cogitative nose, broad at the tip with a dent in the middle, twitched impatiently. When she made a pause, he heaved himself to his feet, capsizing a fragile table.

"Sorry! I hope nothing is damaged." He picked it up gingerly. "I can't stay longer, I'm afraid. Sermon to write."

"Ah, were you going home to write your next Sunday's sermon?" The dulcet tones held a sting of unbelief, and naturally, since his face had been turned the other way. "You don't leave your choice of a subject till the last moment. So wise of you!"

A twinkle in the deep-set eyes showed appreciation of this. She stood up slowly.

"And your daughter, Mr. Winton,--the sweet Doris. Do tell me about her. We have not met for days. I am so interested in that dear girl. She is so unusual--so charming--so clever and bewitching!"

It was hardly in father-nature not to respond to this,--even though he did not believe that she meant what she said. He and she had been antagonistic from the moment of their first meeting. None the less, he paused in his retreat, that he might hear more.

"I assure you, she has quite taken hold of me. Quite fascinated me. Such a charming face--hers! I adore hazel eyes, and hers are true hazel--positive orbs of light." The Rector uttered a silent "Bosh!" to this. "Now that I am unpacked and arranged, I hope to see a great deal of that dear child. Tell her so, please, with my love. We are such near neighbours--" "Much too near!" silently commented the Rector-- "that I hope she will be always in and out. Tell Doris--may I call her so?--that it will be a real charity, if she will come as often as possible to my little cot."

Why couldn't she say "cottage" like a sensible being? Mr. Winton hated being humbugged, and he abhorred gush. Praise of his Doris was sweet; but he could not quite swallow all this.

Mrs. Brutt studied through draped curtains his swinging stride down the little pathway.

"Of all uncouth beings! The contrast!" murmured she, setting alongside a mental picture of the Squire.

"And his wife. Not so uncouth, certainly, but really more unendurable. The girl's life, under such a regime, must be no joke. I wonder how she stands it, for my part."

Mrs. Brutt strolled round the room, which was crowded with furniture, with pictures, and with bric-a-brac ornaments, many of them old and valuable. She altered the position of one or two, thinking still about Doris Winton.

"A pretty girl," she murmured,--"and with pretty ways. She might make a sensation, away from this poky place. I wonder whether, some day, I could bring her forward. Not an impossible plan. What if I were to offer to take her abroad? I doubt if the Rector would approve. He likes me as little as I like him. But if I can get hold of the girl somehow--" She clapped her hands and laughed aloud. "I have it! I'll suggest the idea to the Squire. That will do. He simply rules the neighbourhood."

A ring at the front door took her by surprise. She glided to the window, just in time for a glimpse. Actually!--it was the Squire himself. Again--already! The impression she had made on him must have been agreeable. This flashed through her mind as she fled to the mantelpiece and anxiously surveyed herself. Although past forty, she knew that no grey lines had begun to appear in her well-dressed dark hair; and while she was a plain woman, so far as features were concerned, she also knew that her figure was good, and that she could carry herself with the air of being a somebody.

"Mr. Stirling" was announced. He found the lady engrossed in a book, which she put aside with a dreamy air, before beaming into a surprised welcome.

"This is a pleasure indeed. A most unexpected pleasure. How kind--how very kind! Pray sit down."

The Squire had called in passing, to leave a small volume on architecture which she had said she wished to read. He came in only to point out a passage bearing on the structure of the parish church; and he had not meant to stay. But protests proved useless. He, like the Rector, found that once inside Clover Cottage, it was not easy to get away.

Baiting the Ground

"You remembered what I said. How thoughtful!" Mrs. Brutt turned over one or two leaves of the book. "It looks absolutely fascinating. I adore reading. After the society of friends--" and she sighed--"it is the chief solace of my lonely hours."

"I hope you will not be lonely here." The speaker was in age over fifty, and in looks singularly young, with few grey hairs and a spare alert figure. His features were good, and his expression in repose rather severe; but the smile brought irradiation. People thought much of him, both for his unfailing kindness and courtesy, and for the fact that his forbears had owned the land round about since the days of the early Henrys. He was perhaps the most popular man among rich and poor in the county.

Mrs. Brutt presently alluded with a smile to her last caller. "Such a dear good man and so deliciously unconventional. Don't you delight in that sort of moral sublimity? And dear Mrs. Winton--the busiest of rectorinns! That word just describes her. So useful! So efficient! She seems to understand everybody, and to think of everything. Quite delightful, is it not! Positively, I envy her. Such a soul for doing good."

The Squire hated gossip at least as much as the Rector; but he was not so quick to detect its presence. Still, an uneasy bend appeared in his smooth forehead, which acted as a danger-signal to the astute Mrs. Brutt, before he was himself aware of uneasiness. She dropped the dear good Rector and his wife like a pair of hot potatoes, and skated in a new direction.

What charming country it was! Such lovely scenery! Such numbers, too, of sweet farms within reach. Didn't Mr. Stirling look upon English farm-life as a perfectly ideal existence?

"I had a drive yesterday afternoon, to return the call of your sister-in-law at Deene,--I beg your pardon, your cousin I ought to have said. Such a charming woman! I'm really quite in love with her already. And her son--one of the best-informed men I ever came across. One longs to sit at his feet and learn."

The Squire failed to echo this aspiration. Mrs. Brutt, noting his look, resolved to be in future more sparing in her praise of Mr. Hamilton Stirling.

"Then the driver took me a long round by the loveliest spot imaginable--'Wyldd's Farm'--such an appropriate name. One of your farm's, he told me; as of course I might have guessed. I walked through a large field to get a nearer view; and the farmer himself came out for a chat. Not the new-fangled sort, but the real old-fashioned type--quite idyllic!--a genuine old yeoman. He simply charmed me. So respectful. So self-respecting. I hoped he would ask me to go in, for I saw the sweetest little face of a girl looking out of the window, and I wanted to know her. He didn't--but I shall go again, and perhaps next time he will."

Surely she had not "put her foot in it" this time! The Squire's forehead was puckered all over, fine lines ruffling its surface. She racked her brain to discover wherein the blunder had consisted, while glissading off into fresh paths. Her exertions met with success, and gradually his look of annoyance faded.

"The real delight of country is, after all, in long walks," she remarked. "I can't afford many drives. But walks--with a companion-- are delightful. Real long rambles, I mean."

"Miss Winton is a good walker," he said, as he stood up.

Mrs. Brutt caught at the suggestion. She did so admire Doris Winton; a captivating creature, pretty, graceful, full of life, "the dearest of girls." And wasn't it touching to see one, so fitted to adorn society, devoting herself to parish drudgery? So good and useful! But rather melancholy--didn't the Squire think?

"Of course one knows that the work has to be done. And the Rector's daughter has to take her share. But there are limits. And she is so young--so taking! For my part, I do like young folks to have a merry time--not to wear themselves out before they've had their swing."

Mr. Stirling's attention was arrested.

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