Part 14

"And old Dryasdust has been harbouring Jack! And now he 's gone to tell him!--Lucy, let's see what desperate thing they 'll do next. Come!" He drew her gently into the Gazebo, and for a moment there was complete silence in the Walk.

But suddenly this was shattered by a fierce outcry in Doctor Sternroyd's passage. The door was flung open and the Doctor appeared, vainly trying to bar Jack's way.

"But, my dear young friend--" the Doctor was protesting.

"Let me pass!" shouted Jack, livid, and thrusting his host aside. "For five years I 've been a sailor, and I can't think of the words I want!"

"Dear, dear! Tut, tut!" said the Doctor; but he did not wait. The conspiracy at any rate was off his mind. He retired into his house, and carefully locked the door.

Jack rushed to Marjolaine's house and boldly performed a long rat-tat with the brass knocker, muttering to himself all the time, "The old fool! Oh, my stars! the silly old fool!"

Nanette appeared.

"Tell Miss Marjory that--" began Jack, violently.

"Plait-il?" said Nanette, impassively.

"Oh, hang!--Er--deet ah Madermerzell--"

But Marjolaine ran into the passage. "Jack!" she cried, much alarmed. "Oh! What is it?"

"Come out! Come out!" cried Jack, seizing her hand and dragging her hastily down the steps, to Nanette's horror and indignation.

"Ah, mais!" the latter exclaimed, "Ou est donc Madame?" and went in to look for her.

Jack was incoherent. "Sternroyd!" he gasped. "He had the licence! Had it! We were to be married to-morrow! And he 's gone and given it--to whom do you think?--to my father!"

"Oh!" exclaimed poor Marjolaine, "then all is over!"

"No!" he cried, with magnificent determination. "All 's to begin again! Take me to your mother. Then I 'll take you to my father."

Lord Otford and Madame Lachesnais had come out of the summer-house.

"That is what you should have done at first, sir!" said Lord Otford.

"Father!" cried Jack, amazed.

With a half-frightened cry of "Maman!" Marjolaine threw herself in her mother's arms.

But Jack was not to be trifled with. He faced his father heroically. "It's no use, sir! You can cut me off with a shilling, but I mean to marry Marjory!"

Marjolaine was not to be outdone in courage. "Maman!" she said, with a radiant face, "he came back; and I 'm going to marry him."

Lord Otford turned gravely to Madame. "What do you say?"

"I say, God bless them."

"Maman!" cried Marjolaine, hugging her.

"And I, too, say God bless them!" cried Lord Otford, heartily.

"Marjory!" shouted Jack; and in a moment the lovers were in each other's arms.

"H'm," suggested Lord Otford, drily, "I believe this is a public thoroughfare!"

The lovers separated abashed. "Oh, sir!" said Jack, "please give me back that document."

"Why, no, Jack," answered his father, "I want that." And he and Madame glanced at each other guiltily.

"But, sir!" protested Jack.

"Um--the fact is--" Lord Otford had never felt so shy in his life. In vain he appealed to Madame for support; she was much too busy examining the very pretty point of her very pretty shoe. "I say, the fact is--with slight alterations--it may come in useful. Er--I, too, am John Sayle--and--um--I, too, am going to get married."

"Marjory," said Jack, very gravely, "my father's trying to be funny."

But Marjolaine's attention was divided between her mother and Lord Otford. The clumsy shyness of the one and the pretty confusion of the other gave her, as she would have said in French, furiously to think. Besides which, we must not forget she was in her Mother's confidence.

"Maman," she said, roguishly, "I believe!--Lord Otford! I believe--!"

"Believe, my child, believe!" cried Lord Otford, glad not to have to enter into further explanations. He took her pretty head between his hands, and kissed her. "Here 's the document, Jack; and--ah--there is a pleasant seat under the elm; and agreeable retirement in the--ah--Gazebo."

So he and Madame sat in the arbour, and Jack and Marjolaine sat under the elm, and the leaves of that wise old tree having been awakened by Jack, asked each other with a pleasant rustle which couple was the happier of the two.

There was a great to-do at the Admiral's. I think Mrs. Poskett had been watching the lovers; for now the door burst open, and the Admiral and Jim hauled out the little brass cannon, followed by Mrs. Poskett, all in a flutter with pleasant alarm. While they were planting the gun close behind the unconscious Eyesore's back, the lamplighter came running in--he always ran--and put out the first lamp. Barbara and Basil came slowly out of their house, and leant over the railings in a close embrace, while Ruth stood watching them from the upper window. Basil, indeed, had brought his fiddle.

"Haul her out!" roared Sir Peter, alluding to the gun.

Mrs. Poskett uttered a little scream. "Oh, Peter! I 'm frightened!"

Jim reassured her in a hoarse grunt. "It 's all right, Mum, I 've emptied her."

The lamplighter put out the lower lamp.

"What are you doing that for?" cried Jack.

The lamplighter pointing over his shoulder, replied laconically, "Moon!" and ran off.

Sir Peter was just about to apply a lighted candle to the touch-hole of the gun, when Mr. Jerome Brooke-Hoskyn, much dishevelled, threw open his window, and cried in a horrified whisper, "Sir Peter! Sir Peter!--For Heaven's sake, don't fire that gun!"

"Why the devil not, sir?" roared Sir Peter, angrily.

"Sh!" cried Mr. Brooke-Hoskyn, waving a frantic hand. "_It's a boy!_"

"Gobblessmysoul!" cried Sir Peter, "I'll be godfather!"

And all the Walk was delighted, and the leaves of the elm clapped their hands together in the evening breeze.

Basil gently disengaged his arm from Barbara's waist and began playing the slow movement of the Kreutzer Sonata very, very softly.

Suddenly, behind the tower of Chiswick Church, up leapt the great full moon, turning the river to molten light, and flooding the Walk with gold.

The Admiral and Mrs. Poskett hurried to the Gazebo--but that was full. They turned to the seat under the elm--but that was occupied. "Gobblessmysoul!" said the Admiral.

So they had to be content to stand very close together, watching the river. And Sempronius came and rubbed his arched back against the Admiral's legs. Jim and Nanette looked on from their door-steps in amazement.

In his bow-window Doctor Sternroyd was gazing fondly at a faded miniature, while with his other hand he raised a glass of punch on high. "Araminta!" he sighed, and drank to her memory.

"Oh, Selina!" exclaimed Mr. Brooke-Hoskyn.

In the Gazebo there was a very tender whisper:--"Lucy!"

Marjolaine's head sank on her lover's shoulder with a happy, "Oh, Jack!"

Ruth was showering blossoms of jasmine on Barbara and Basil.

There was a great silence, emphasized by the yearning notes of Basil's fiddle. And through the silence came Ruth's voice, tender and wistful:--

"Ah, well!--I'm sure we all hope they'll live happily ever after!"--

And, for the first time in his life, the Eyesore caught a fish.