CHAPTER XXXI.

IN RETREAT.

"Is it possible that we have only been away for nine months?" murmured Elizabeth, as the little steamer worked its way up to the well-remembered jetty, and she looked once more on surf and headland, island rock and scattered township, lying under the desolate moorlands along the shore. "Doesn't it seem _at least_ nine years?"

"Or ninety," replied Patty. "I feel like a new generation. How exactly the same everything is! Here they have all been going on as they always did. There is Mrs. Dunn, dear old woman!--in the identical gown that she had on the day we went away."

Everything was the same, but they were incredibly changed. There was no sleeping on the nose of the vessel now; no shrinking from association with their fellow-passengers. The skipper touched his cap to them, which he never used to do in the old times; and the idlers on the pier, when the vessel came in, stared at them as if they had indeed been away for ninety years. Mrs. Dunn took in at a glance the details of their travelling costumes, which were of a cut and quality not often seen in those parts; and, woman-like, straightway readjusted her smiles and manners, unconsciously becoming at once more effusive and more respectful than (with the ancient waterproofs in her mind's eye) she had prepared herself to be. But Sam saw only the three fair faces, that were to him as unchanged as his own heart; and he launched himself fearlessly into the boat as soon as it came alongside, with horny hand outstretched, and boisterous welcomes.

"So y'are come back again?" he cried, "and darn glad I am to see yer, and no mistake." He added a great deal more in the way of greeting and congratulation before he got them up the landing stage and into the capacious arms of Mrs. Dunn--who was quite agreeably surprised to be hugged and kissed by three such fashionable young ladies. Then he proceeded to business with a triumphant air. "Now, Miss 'Lisbeth, yer see here's the cart--that's for the luggage. Me and the old hoss is going to take it straight up. And there is a buggy awaiting for you. And Mr. Brion told me to say as he was sorry he couldn't come down to the boat, but it's court day, yer see, and he's got a case on, and he's obliged to stop till he's done wi' that."

"Oh," exclaimed Elizabeth, hastily, "did you tell Mr. Brion that we were coming?"

"Why, of course, miss. I went and told him the very first thing--'twas only right, him being such a friend--your only friend here, as one may say."

"Oh, no, Sam, we have you."

"Me!"--with scornful humility--"I'm nothing. Yes, of course I went and told him. And he wouldn't let us get no lodgings; he said you was just to go and stay wi' Mrs. Harris and him. He would ha' wrote to tell yer, but there worn't time."

"And much more comfortable you'll be than at them lodging places," put in Mrs. Dunn. "There's nothing empty now that's at all fit for you. The season is just a-coming on, you see, and we're like to be pretty full this year."

"But we wanted to be away from the town, Mrs. Dunn."

"And so you will be away from the town. Why, bless me, you can't be much farther away--to be anywhere at all--than up there," pointing to the headland where their old home was dimly visible in the November sunshine. "There's only Mrs. Harris and the gal, and _they_ won't interfere with you."

"Up _there!_" exclaimed the sisters in a breath. And Mr. and Mrs. Dunn looked with broad grins at one another.

"Well, I'm blowed!" exclaimed the fisherman. "You don't mean as Master Paul never let on about his pa and him buying the old place, do you? Why, they've had it, and the old man has been living there--he comes down every morning and goes up every night--walks both ways, he do, like a young chap--this two or three months past. Mrs. Hawkins she couldn't bear the lonesomeness of it when the winter come on, and was right down glad to get out of it. They gave Hawkins nearly double what _you_ got for it. I told yer at the time that yer was a-throwing of it away."

The girls tried to look as if they had known all about it, while they digested their surprise. It was a very great surprise, almost amounting to a shock.

"And how _is_ Mr. Paul?" asked Mrs. Dunn of Patty. "Dear young man, it's a long time since we've seen anything of him! I hope he's keeping his health well!"

"I think so--I hope so," said Patty gently. "He works very hard, you know, writing things for the papers. He is wanted too much to be able to take holidays like ordinary people. They couldn't get on without him."

Elizabeth turned round in astonishment: she had expected to see her sister in a blaze of wrath over Sam's unexpected communications. "I'm afraid you won't like this arrangement, dearie," she whispered. "What had we better do?"

"Oh, go--go," replied Patty, with a tremulous eagerness that she vainly tried to hide. "I don't mind it. I--I am glad to see Mr. Brion. It will be very nice to stay with him--and in our own dear old house too. Oh, I wouldn't refuse to go for anything! Besides we _can't_."

"No, I don't see how we can," acquiesced Elizabeth, cheerfully. Patty having no objection, she was delighted with the prospect.

They walked up the little pier in a group, the "hoss" following them with the reins upon his neck; and, while Elizabeth and Patty mounted the buggy provided by Mr. Brion, Eleanor gratified the old fisherman and his wife by choosing to stay with them and ride up in the cart. It was a lovely morning, just approaching noon, the sky as blue as--no, _not_ as a turquoise or a sapphire--but as nothing save itself can be in a climate like ours, saturated with light and lucent colour, and giving to the sea its own but an intenser hue. I can see it all in my mind's eye--as my bodily eyes have seen it often--that dome above, that plain below, the white clouds throwing violet shadows on the water, the white gulls dipping their red legs in the shining surf and reflecting the sunlight on their white wings; but I cannot describe it. It is beyond the range of pen and ink, as of brush and pigments. As the buggy lightly climbed the steep cliff, opening the view wider at every step, the sisters sat hand in hand, leaning forward to take it all in; but they, too, said nothing--only inhaled long draughts of the delicious salt air, and felt in every invigorated fibre of them that they had done well to come. Reaching the crest of the bluff, and descending into the broken basin--or saucer, rather--in which Seaview Villa nestled, they uttered simultaneously an indignant moan at the spectacle of Mrs. Hawkins's devastations. There was the bright paint, and the whitewash, and the iron roof, and the fantastic trellis; and there was _not_ the ivy that had mantled the eaves and the chimney stacks, nor the creepers that had fought so hard for existence, nor the squat verandah posts which they had bountifully embraced--nor any of the features that had made the old house distinct and characteristic.

"Never mind," said Patty, who was the first to recover herself. "It looks very smart and tidy. I daresay it wanted doing up badly. After all, I'd sooner see it look as unlike home as possible, now that it isn't home."

Mrs. Harris came out and warmly welcomed them in Mr. Brion's name. She took them into the old sitting-room, now utterly transformed, but cosy and inviting, notwithstanding, with the lawyer's substantial old leather chairs and sofas about it, and a round table in the middle set out for lunch, and the sea and sky shining in through the open verandah doors. She pressed them to have wine and cake to "stay" them till Eleanor and lunch time arrived; and she bustled about with them in their rooms--their own old bedrooms, in one of which was a collection of Paul's schoolboy books and treasures, while they took off their hats and washed their hands and faces; and was very motherly and hospitable, and made them feel still more pleased that they had come. They feasted, with fine appetites, on fish and gooseberry-fool at one o'clock, while Sam and Mrs. Dunn were entertained by the housekeeper in the kitchen; and in the afternoon, the cart and "hoss" having departed, they sat on the verandah in basket chairs, and drank tea, and idled, and enjoyed the situation thoroughly. Patty got a dog's-eared novel of Mayne Reid's from the book-case in her bedroom, and turned over the pages without reading them to look at the pencil marks and thumb stains; and Eleanor dozed and fanned herself; and Elizabeth sewed and thought. And then their host came home, riding up from the township on a fast and panting steed, quite thrown off his balance by emotion. He was abject in his apologies for having been deterred by cruel fate and business from meeting them at the steamer and conducting them in person to his house, and superfluous in expressions of delight at the honour they had conferred on him.

"And how did you leave my boy?" he asked presently, when due inquiries after their own health and welfare had been satisfied. He spoke as if they and Paul had all been living under one roof. "And when is he coming to see his old father again?"

Patty, who was sitting beside her host--"in his pocket," Nelly declared--and was simply servile in her affectionate demonstrations, undertook to describe Paul's condition and circumstances, and she implied a familiar knowledge of them which considerably astonished her sisters. She also gave the father a full history of all the son's good deeds in relation to themselves--described how he had befriended them in this and that emergency, and asserted warmly, and with a grave face, that she didn't know what they _should_ have done without him.

"That's right--that's right!" said the old man, laying her hand on his knee and patting it fondly. "I was sure he would--I knew you'd find out his worth when you came to know him. We must write to him to-morrow, and tell him you have arrived safely. He doesn't know I have got you, eh? We must tell him. Perhaps we can induce him to take a little holiday himself--I am sure it is high time he had one--and join us for a few days. What do you think?"

"Oh, I am _sure_ he can't come away just now," protested Patty, pale with eagerness and horror. "In the middle of the Exhibition--and a parliamentary crisis coming on--it would be quite impossible!"

"I don't know--I don't know. I fancy 'impossible' is not a word you will find in his dictionary," said the old gentleman encouragingly. "When he hears of our little arrangement, he'll want to take a hand, as the Yankees say. He won't like to be left out--no, no."

"But, dear Mr. Brion," Patty strenuously implored--for this was really a matter of life and death, "do think what a critical time it is! They never _can_ spare him now."

"Then they ought to spare him. Because he is the best man they have, that is no reason why they should work him to death. They don't consider him sufficiently. He gives in to them too much. He is not a machine."

"Perhaps he would come," said Patty, "but it would be against his judgment--it would be at a heavy cost to his country--it would be just to please us--oh, don't let us tempt him to desert his post, which _no_ one could fill in his absence! Don't let us unsettle and disturb him at such a time, when he is doing so much good, and when he wants his mind kept calm. Wait for a little while; he might get away for Christmas perhaps."

"But by Christmas, I am afraid, you would be gone."

"Never mind. We see him in Melbourne. And we came here to get away from all Melbourne associations."

"Well, well, we'll see. But I am afraid you will be very dull with only an old fellow like me to entertain you."

"Dull!" they all exclaimed in a breath. It was just what they wanted, to be so peaceful and quiet--and, above all things, to have him (Mr. Brion, senior) entirely to themselves.

The polite old man looked as if he were scarcely equal to the weight of the honour and pleasure they conferred upon him. He was excessively happy. As the hours and days went on, his happiness increased. His punctilious courtesy merged more and more into a familiar and paternal devotion that took all kinds of touching shapes; and he felt more and more at a loss to express adequately the tender solicitude and profound satisfaction inspired in his good old heart by the sojourn of such charming guests within his gates. To Patty he became especially attached; which was not to be wondered at, seeing how susceptible he was and how lavishly she exercised her fascinations upon him. She walked to his office with him in the morning; she walked to meet him when he came hastening back in the afternoon; she read the newspaper (containing Paul's peerless articles) to him in the evening, and mixed his modest glass of grog for him before he went to bed. In short, she made him understand what it was to have a charming and devoted daughter, though she had no design in doing so--no motive but to gratify her affection for Paul in the only way open to her. So the old gentleman was very happy--and so were they. But still it seemed to him that he must be happier than they were, and that, being a total reversal of the proper order of things, troubled him. He had a pang every morning when he wrenched himself away from them--leaving them, as he called it, alone--though loneliness was the very last sensation likely to afflict them. It seemed so inhospitable, so improper, that they should be thrown upon their own resources, and the company of a housekeeper of humble status, for the greater part of the day--that they should be without a male attendant and devotee, while a man existed who was privileged to wait on them. If only Paul had been at home! Paul would have taken them for walks, for drives, for boating excursions, for pic-nics; he would have done the honours of Seaview Villa as the best of hosts and gentlemen. However, Paul, alas! was tied to his newspaper in Melbourne, and the old man had a business that he was cruelly bound to attend to--at any rate, sometimes. But at other times he contrived to shirk his business and then he racked his brains for projects whereby he might give them pleasure.

"Let's see," he said one evening, a few days after their arrival; "I suppose you have been to the caves too often to care to go again?"

"No," said Elizabeth; "we have never been to the caves at all."

"_What_--living within half-a-dozen miles of them all your lives! Well, I believe there are many more like you. If they had been fifty miles away, you would have gone about once a twelvemonth."

"No, Mr. Brion; we were never in the habit of going sight-seeing. My father seldom left the house, and my mother only when necessary; and we had no one else to take us."

"Then I'll take you, and we will go to-morrow. Mrs. Harris shall pack us a basket for lunch, and we'll make a day of it. Dear, dear, what a pity Paul couldn't be here, to go with us!"

The next morning, which was brilliantly fine, brought the girls an anxiously-expected letter from Mrs. Duff-Scott. Sam Dunn, who was an occasional postman for the solitary house, delivered it, along with a present of fresh fish, while Mr. Brion was absent in the township, negotiating for a buggy and horses for his expedition. The fairy godmother had given but a grudging permission for this _villeggiatura_ of theirs, and they were all relieved to have her assurance that she was not seriously vexed with them. Her envelope was inscribed to "Miss King," but the long letter enclosed was addressed to her "dearest children" collectively, tenderly inquiring how they were getting on and when they were coming back, pathetically describing her own solitude--so unlike what it was before she knew the comfort of their companionship--and detailing various items of society news. Folded in this, however, was the traditional lady's postscript, scribbled on a small half-sheet and marked "private," which Elizabeth took away to read by herself. She wondered, with a little alarm, what serious matter it was that required a confidential postscript, and this was what she read:--

"I have been thinking over our talk the other day, dear. Perhaps I spoke too strongly. One is apt to make arbitrary generalisations on the spur of the moment, and to forget how circumstances may alter cases. There is another side to the question that should not be overlooked. The believing wife or husband may be the salvation of _the other_, and when the other is _honest_ and _earnest_, though _mistaken_, there is the strongest hope of this. It requires thinking of on _all_ sides, my darling, and I fear I spoke without thinking enough. Consult your own heart--I am sure it will advise you well."

Elizabeth folded up the note, and put it into her pocket. Then--for she was alone in her own little bedroom--she sat down to think of it; to wonder what had reminded Mrs. Duff-Scott of their conversation the "other day"--what had induced her to temporise with the convictions which then appeared so sincere and absolute. But she could make nothing of it. It was a riddle without the key.

Then she heard the sound of buggy wheels, hurried steps on the verandah, and the voice of Mr. Brion calling her.

"My dear," said the old man when she went out to him, speaking in some haste and agitation, "I have just met at the hotel a friend of yours from Melbourne--Mr. Yelverton. He came by the coach last night. He says Mrs. Duff-Scott sent him up to see how you are getting on, and to report to her. He is going away again to-morrow, and I did not like to put off our trip, so I have asked him to join us. I hope I have not done wrong"--looking anxiously into her rapidly changing face--"I hope you won't think that I have taken a liberty, my dear."