CHAPTER VII

ESSIE

I

That simile of Mr. Wriford's condition in these days to one who, rearranging the furniture of his room, stares in constant bafflement at a bare corner and can by no means determine with what to fill it, may be advanced a further step. The decorator's eye, narrowly judging all the objects that are at his disposal, will in time, in a "better than nothing" spirit, turn more frequently to one, and presently he will try it: there came a time when it occurred to Mr. Wriford, dispassionately revolving the vacancy in his life, that there was one might fill it--Essie.

One day, and this was the beginning of the idea--not then conceived--Mr. Wriford asked Essie if he might take her for a walk. A Saturday evening was the day: a July evening, cool and still--very grateful and inviting after oppressive heat through morning and afternoon; a breeze come up with nightfall. There was no preparation class at Tower House on Saturdays. Mr. Wriford left his boys reading the books he had rummaged for them out of Mr. Pennyquick's library and came home to early supper. By eight o'clock Essie had washed up, and Mr. Wriford came to her where she was standing by the shop door enjoying the pleasant air.

"Isn't it jolly, though?" said Essie, moving to give him place beside her in the entrance.

"Yes, it's beautifully cool now," Mr. Wriford agreed.

Several young couples--man and maid--were passing in one direction up the street. Mr. Wriford watched Essie's face as she watched them. He could see her eyes shining and those little twitches of her lips as she observed each separate swain and maid. With the slow passing of one pair, their hands clasped, walking very close together, she gave a little squirm and a little sound of merriment and turned to him.

"Aren't they funny, though," said Essie, "courting!"

Mr. Wriford asked her: "Where are they all going?"

"Why, they're going to the Gardens, of course. There isn't half a jolly band plays there Saturday evenings."

She was the prettiest little thing, as Mr. Wriford looked at her, standing there beside him. He liked her merry ways, so different from his own habitual quietude. It occurred to him that, apart from that walk to the station together some weeks before, he hardly ever had spoken to her out of her parents' company. Why not?--so pretty and jolly as she was.

A sudden impulse came to him. He hesitated to speak it. She might resent the suggestion. He looked at her again--those funny little twitchings of her lips! "May I take you for a stroll, Essie?" he said.

There was not the least reason to have hesitated. Essie's face showed her pleasure. She quite jumped from her leaning pose against the doorway. "Oh, that's fine!" cried Essie. "I'll just pop on my chapeau. I won't be half a tick."

She was gone with the words, and he heard her running briskly up the stairs to her room and then very briskly down again and then in the parlour, crying: "Dad, me an' the lodger are going for a stroll in the Gardens. Sure you've got everything you want, Mother? Look, there's the new silk when you've finished that ball. Isn't it pretty, though!" and then the sound of a kiss for Mother and a kiss for Dad; and then coming to him, gaily swinging her gloves in a brown little hand, her eyes quite extraordinarily sparkling.

"There you are!" cried Essie, and they started. "That wasn't long, was it? Why, some girls, you know, keep their young fellows waiting a treat."

"Do they?" said Mr. Wriford, a trifle coldly.

"Don't they just!" cried Essie, noticing nothing that his tone might have been intended to convey, and beginning, as they went on in silence, to walk every now and then with a gay little skip as though by that means to exercise her delighted spirits.

Mr. Wriford, now that he was embarked upon his sudden impulse, found himself somehow dissatisfied with it. He would have been embarrassed, perhaps a little disappointed, he told himself, had she refused his invitation. He found himself embarrassed, perhaps a little piqued, that she had accepted it so readily, taken it so much as a matter of course. And then there was that "young fellow" expression with its obvious implication. His idea had been that she would have shown herself conscious of being--well, flattered, by his invitation. Not, he assured himself, that there was anything flattering in it; but still--. Perhaps, though, she was more conscious of it than she had seemed to show; and coming to that thought he asked her suddenly, giving her the opportunity to say so: "I hope you didn't mind my proposing to take you for a walk?"

Essie skipped. "Good gracious!" cried Essie. "Whyever?"

"I thought you might think it rather--sudden."

Essie laughed and skipped again. "Sudden! Why, you've bin long enough, goodness knows! Why, I've bin expecting you to ask me for weeks, you know!"

"Have you?" said Mr. Wriford.

"Think I have!" cried Essie. "Why, the lodger always does!"

"Oh!" said Mr. Wriford.

This time Essie seemed to detect something amiss in his tone. In a few paces she was bending forward as she walked and trying to read his face. "I say," said Essie, "you aren't in a crosspatch, are you?"

"Of course I'm not. Why should I be?"

"Sure I don't know. You wanted me to come, didn't you?"

"Of course I did. I shouldn't have asked you otherwise."

"Well, I don't know," said Essie. "Young fellows are that funny sometimes!"

Silence between them after that, but as they came to the Gardens Essie showed that the funny ways of young fellows had been occupying her in the interval. "Of course, you're always very quiet, aren't you?" she said.

"I don't talk much," Mr. Wriford agreed.

"Of course you don't!" cried Essie and seemed so reassured by the recollection that Mr. Wriford suddenly felt he had been behaving a little unkindly--stupidly; and with some idea of making amends smiled at her.

Essie flashed back with eyes and lips. "Of course you don't!" she cried again. "Well, I vote we enjoy ourselves now if ever. Just look at all the lights! See the funny little blue ones? Aren't they funny though, all twinkling! Let's have a laugh!"

With a laugh, therefore, into the Gardens; and with a laugh Mr. Wriford's unreasoning distemper put off. Jolly little Essie!

No need, moreover, to do more than listen to her, and to think how jolly she was, and how pretty she looked, as she turned chattering to him while she led the way among the groups clustered about the bandstand. "We'll go right through," said Essie. "There's seats up there where you can sit an' hear the band an' see the lights a treat. Jus' watch a minute to see that great big fat man with the trombone where he keeps coming in pom! pom! There! See him? Oh, isn't he a caution!"

Close to Mr. Wriford she stands, and Mr. Wriford watches her watch the fat gentleman with the trombone, her lips twitching while she waits for his turn and then her little squirm of glee when he raises his instrument to his mouth and solemnly administers his deliberate pom! pom! to the melody. "Oh, dear!" cries Essie, "isn't this just too jolly for anything! Come along. Up this path. I know a not half quiet little seat up here. I say, though! When you've been looking at the lights! If this isn't dark! Oo-oo!"

This "Oo-oo!" is expressive of the fact that really it is rather ticklish work suddenly being launched on a pitch dark path, falling away steeply at the sides, after the glare of the bandstand; and with the "Oo-oo!" comes Essie's arm pressing very close against Mr. Wriford's and her hand against his hand.

"Let's hold hands," says Essie, and her fingers come wriggling into his---cool and firm, her fingers, and there is the faint chink of the bracelets that she wears. "I like holding hands, don't you?"

Cool and firm her fingers. His hand is unresponsive, but rather jolly to feel them come wriggling into it and then twine about it. She settles them to her liking, and this is enlocked about his own, her palm to his. Yes, rather jolly to feel them thus: they give him a curious thrill, a desire.

II

Essie's seat was found to be quite the not half quiet little place that she had promised. It stood at the termination of the winding path, backed by a high rockery of ferns and looking down upon the lights and the bandstand whence came the music very pleasantly through the distance.

Here were influences that touched anew the curious thrill her fingers had given Mr. Wriford. The warm, still night, the feeling of remoteness here, the music floating up, Essie very close beside him, her face clear to his eyes in this soft glow of summer darkness. A very long time since to Mr. Wriford there had been such playfulness of spirit as stirred within him now. Soft she was where she touched him, sensibly warm against his arm, enticingly fragrant.

"Told you this would be jolly, didn't I?" said Essie.

"Yes, it is," agreed Mr. Wriford, and put his arm along the seat behind her shoulders.

Essie didn't seem to mind.

And then his hand upon the shoulder further from him.

Nor to mind that.

"All right, I call it," said Essie. "You know, if you came out more to the band and places like this, you soon wouldn't be so quiet."

"I shouldn't care much about it by myself," said Mr. Wriford.

"Oh, I'd come with you," Essie assured him. "Nothing's much fun not when you do it by yourself. I say, whatever are you doing with that arm of yours on my shoulder?"

"I'm not doing anything with it," said Mr. Wriford, and gave a little laugh, and said: "I'm going to, though."

"What?"

"This."

"Oo-oo!" cried Essie.

Mr. Wriford's "This" was bending his face to hers, and his arm slipped a little lower down her shoulders, and drawing her towards him. "Oo-oo-oo!" cried Essie and pressed away and turned away her head. "Oo-oo!" and then he kissed her cheek, then brought his other arm around and turned her face to his. "Oo-oo-oo! I say, you know!"--and there, close beneath his own, were those soft, expressive lips of hers, and twice he kissed them: and of a sudden she was relaxed in his arms, no longer struggling, and there were depths in those eyes of hers, and this time a long kiss.

"There!" said Mr. Wriford and released her; and immediately two curious emotions followed in his mind. First, that, now the thing was over, it was over--completed, done, not attracting any more.

"I say, you know!" said Essie, settling her hat and pouting at him: and all rosy she was, all radiant, enticingly pouting, pretending aggrievement--just the very blushes, pouts, and smiles to have it done again. But for Mr. Wriford not enticing at all: over, done; conceiving in him almost a distaste of it; and, moved a trifle away from her, he said hardly: "I suppose the lodger always does that, too?"

"Well, most of 'em," said Essie cheerfully; and at that his new emotion quickened, and he made a petulant, angry movement with his shoulders.

She detected his meaning just as she had detected the coldness in his voice as they came down towards the Gardens together a short while before. She detected his meaning, and answered him sharply, and the words of her defence and the manner of it broke out in him the second of the two emotions that followed his caprice.

"Well, what's the odds to it if they have?" said Essie, sitting up very straight and speaking very tensely. "Where's the harm? It's only fun. Not as if I had a proper young fellow of my own. Take jolly good care if I had! Where's the harm? I like being kissed. I like to think some one's fond of me."

Now, for all the sharpness of her tone, she looked appealing: a trifle of a flutter in those expressive lips of hers: a hint of a catch in her voice. Swiftly to Mr. Wriford came his second emotion. Poor little Essie that liked to think some one was fond of her! Jolly little Essie with her "Let's have a laugh!" Here was the kindest, cheeriest little creature in the world! Let him enjoy it!

"That's all right, Essie," said Mr. Wriford and moved to her again and took her brown little hand.

"Glad you think so, I'm sure!" said Essie. "That's my hand, if you've no objection," and she withdrew it.

Mr. Wriford took it again and held it while it wriggled. "Come, who's the crosspatch now?"

"Well, that's nice!" cried Essie. "I'm sure I'm not."

"Put your fingers like you had them when we walked up. That's the way of it. This little one there and that little one there."

"Oh, go on!" said Essie, but settled her fingers as she was told.

"Rather nice just now, don't you think?" said Mr. Wriford.

"Not bad," said Essie.

"Perhaps we'll do it again?"

"Perhaps the moon'll drop plump out of the sky."

"Well, we'll watch it," said Mr. Wriford, "and if it doesn't we will. Let's be friends, Essie."

"Oh, we're friends, all right."

"Well, I'll pretend I'm your--young fellow. How about that?"

Essie gave a little laugh. "Likely!" she said. "You know, I believe you're a caution after all, for all you're so quiet. My young fellow! Why, I don't even know your name--your Christian name, I mean."

"What do you think?"

"However do I know? Shouldn't be a bit surprised if it was Solomon."

"Well, it isn't. What would you like it to be?"

Essie looked across the bandstand lights beneath them for a moment, then made a little snuggling movement with the hand in Mr. Wriford's, and then looked at him and said softly: "Well, I've never had an Arthur."

"Call me Arthur, then--so long as you don't make it Art or Artie."

"What, don't you like Art, then?" said Essie, and then suddenly, her eyes asparkle again, her lips twitching, "Aren't names funny, though? Let's have a laugh!"

And Mr. Wriford laughed and said the name Edith always made him think of seed cake; and Essie laughed immensely and said Alice always reminded her of a piece of silk; and Mr. Wriford said Ethel was a bit of brown velvet; and Essie said Robert was a bouncing foot-ball; and in this laughter and this childish folly Mr. Wriford found himself immoderately tickled and amused, and Essie quite forgot the disturbance that had followed the kissing; and home when the band stopped they went in quick exchange of lightsome subjects.

Mr. Wriford, for the first time that he might have remembered, went to bed and fell asleep without lying long awake to think and think.

The significant thing was that he did not try to remember it, nor reflect upon it. He was smiling at an absurdity of jolly little Essie's as he put out his light: he was soon asleep.