"I expect he would," she said.

"Then he is tainted. This terrible new democracy has tarred him with its brush," said her husband. "I suppose the end of it will be he will run off with this girl and bring her back married."

"There is not the slightest fear of that. The girl would not consent."

"Not consent!" cried Mr. Bellamie. "Not consent to marry into our family!"

"My dear, there is such a thing as n.o.bility of character, though we don't see much of it, perhaps. I may be allowed to know something of my s.e.x, and I am certain this girl would never marry Aubrey without our consent."

"Why, then, she's a good girl. I'll do all that I can for her if she is like that," said Mr. Bellamie cheerfully.

"What do you suppose she is doing now? Sobbing herself to death," said his wife.

The full-blooded gentleman stirred uneasily. Bad art again. "You are pleading for her, my dear. Most distinctly you are pleading for her. If you are going to side with Aubrey I will give in, of course. I will write to the secretary of the Socialists' League, if there is such a thing, and beg humbly to be enrolled as a member, and I will also state that if the name of Bellamie is too much for them I shall be pleased to adopt that of Tomkins or Jenkins. I cannot permit pride to stand in my way, seeing that my future daughter-in-law has no name at all, unless it is the highly aristocratic one of Smith-Robinson, the father being Smith and the mother Robinson." He spoke with some heat, employing the weapon of cynicism as a perfectly legitimate form of art.

"Surely you do not suggest she is an illegitimate child," said his wife, with some horror.

"I suggest nothing, my dear, because I know nothing. I have heard all sorts of stories about her--probably lies, like those the old man told me. Understand, please, I cannot see the girl," he went on quickly. "I like her. She is _bella et amabilis_, and if I saw much of her, pity and admiration might make a fool of me. You know me, my dear. I am not heartless, as my words might suggest. I want Aubrey to do well, marry well, rise in his profession. If I went to see the child in her cottage the sight would make me miserable. When I left the old man, after he had choked me with the wildest lot of lies you ever heard, I was sad enough for tears. His heart was so good though his art was so bad. The play upon words was unintentional," he added, with a frown.

Mrs. Bellamie said no more, but the coals continued to trouble her, and at last the fire kindled, and she ordered a carriage and drove up on Dartmoor without telling her husband. It was the week before Christmas, and the road was sprinkled with carts pa.s.sing up and down filled with good things, and the men who drove them were filled with good things too, which made them desire the centre of the road at any price. The lady's carriage was often kept at a walking pace by these human slugs with their fill of sloe-gin.

Lewside Cottage was found with difficulty, most of the residents appealed to declaring they had never heard of such a place, but the driver found it at last, and brought the carriage up before the little whitewashed house which looked very wet and dreary amid its wintry surroundings. Mrs. Bellamie shivered as she got out and felt the wind with a sharp edge of frost to it. Somebody else was shivering too, but not with cold. Boodles watched from a corner of one of the windows, and when the lady knocked she wanted to go and hide somewhere and pretend she was miles away.

"Perhaps she has come to tell me about old maids for lodgers," she murmured. Then she ran down, opened the door, and straightway became speechless.

"I have come to see you, my dear," said the lady. The fact was obvious enough to need no comment, but when people are embarra.s.sed, and have to say something, idiotic remarks serve as well as anything. Boodles tried to reply that she perceived the visitor standing before her in the flesh; but her tongue seemed to occupy the whole of her mouth, and she could only smile and flush.

Mrs. Bellamie, finding the conversation left to herself, observed that it was exceedingly cold, while poor Boodles was thinking how hot it was.

She knew that her note had brought Mrs. Bellamie, and she was dreadfully afraid the lady was going to be charitable; open her purse and give her half-a-sovereign, or call to the driver to bring in a hamper of food, or perhaps of toys, for Boodles was feeling fearfully young and shy. "If she gives me anything I shall stamp and scream," she thought.

"Are you really living here alone?" said Mrs. Bellamie, which was quite as foolish as her other remarks, as she could not possibly have expected to see people of various sizes and complexions tumbling suddenly from the cupboards. "How very dreary it must be for you--dear."

The last word was not intended to escape. It was on the tip of the lady's tongue, and rolled off before she could stop it. "Dear" alone sounds much more tender without any possessive p.r.o.noun attached, and the sound of it made Boodles attempt to swallow something that felt like a lump of clay in her throat. She knew she would have to howl if that lump got any higher and reached the tear mark. She felt that if she opened her mouth she would begin to cry. It was such an awful and a pleasant thing to have a visitor, and Aubrey's mother; and she was thinking already how terrible it would be when the visitor went away.

They went into the little sitting-room. Their breath seemed to fill it with cold steam, for there was no fire, which was a bad thing for Mrs.

Bellamie, for she thought at once of the past coal-age and the resemblance of that room to her father's study; and just then Boodles began to cough. It was all over with Mrs. Bellamie. Her secret drawer was wide open, and all that she ought to have been ashamed of was revealed. She was listening again at a certain keyhole, feeling the cold current of air upon her ear, and with it the gentle persistent noise of her proud old father coughing because he hadn't got any fire. She was getting on in life, but her spirit was the same. She would have gone then, and climbed a railing, and stolen coal to give the poor girl a fire.

Boodles looked up with a smile, without in the least knowing that her eyes were hungry for a caress. Mrs. Bellamie bent and kissed her, and Boodles promptly wept.

"My poor child, how can you sit here in the cold? Why don't you have a fire?" said the lady, who seemed bent on saying foolish things that day.

"I--I am so glad to see you," sobbed Boodles, obtaining relief and the use of her tongue. "I would have lighted a fire if I had known you were coming. I only use the kitchen and my bedroom."

"Would you like to show me over the cottage?" said the lady, becoming more sensible.

"It won't take long," said Boodles. "I am sorry for crying. This is Thursday, isn't it? I lose track of the days rather, but the baker comes Wednesdays and Sat.u.r.days, and he came yesterday, and it isn't Sunday, so it must be Thursday. Well, I hadn't cried since Tuesday. Yesterday was a day off."

"You poor child," murmured Mrs. Bellamie.

"Sometimes I think I ought to keep a record, a sort of rain-gauge," went on Boodles in quite a lively fashion. It was a part of her idea. She was playing her game of "not standing it," and after all she was telling the truth so far. "Monday, three-hundred drops. Tuesday, one-hundred-and-twenty-and-a-half drops. Wednesday, none. Thursday, not over yet. It's like a prescription. I'm all right now, you made me feel funny, as I've never had a civilised visitor before. It is very good of you to come and discover me."

Then she took the lady over the tiny house, from the kitchen to her bedroom, taking pride in the fact that it was all very neat, and apologising for the emptiness of the larder by saying that she was only one small girl, and she was well able to live upon air, especially as the wind of Dartmoor was notoriously fattening.

"Eating is only one of the habits of civilisation," declared Boodles.

"So long as you live alone you never get hungry, but directly you go among other people you want to eat. I have often seen two moormen meet on the road. They didn't want anything while they were alone, but so soon as they caught sight of one another they felt thirsty. May I get you a cup of tea?"

"Well, the sight of you has made me thirsty," said Mrs. Bellamie.

Then they laughed together and felt better.

"Look at this basket," said Boodles, pointing to a familiar battered object covered with a sc.r.a.p of oilcloth. "It belongs to a poor man who is in prison now. I brought him here because the people were hunting him, and the policeman came and took him for stealing some clothes, though I'm sure he was innocent. Aubrey gave him half-a-crown on Goose Fair Day, and perhaps he bought the clothes with that. Can you buy a suit of clothes for half-a-crown? If you can't, I don't know how these men live. I am keeping the basket for the poor thing, and when they let him out I expect he will come for it."

Boodles alluded to Brightly and his basket since they gave her the opportunity of mentioning Aubrey. She wanted to see if the lady would accept the opening, and explain the real object of her visit; but Mrs.

Bellamie, who was still respectable, only said that it was rather shocking to think that Boodles had tried to protect a common thief, and then she thought again of the coals, for the theft of which she had never been punished until then. She ought to have been sent to prison too, although she had done much more good than harm in stealing from a wealthy man to give comfort to a poor one. It had made her tender and soft-hearted also. She would never have felt so deeply for Boodles had it not been for that little hiatus of poverty and crime. Rigid honesty has its vices, and some sins have many virtues. Virtues are unpleasant things to carry about in any quant.i.ty, like a pocketful of stones; but little sins are cheery companions while they remain little. Mrs.

Bellamie was a much better woman for having been once a thief.

"Is that clock right?" asked the lady. "I told the driver to come for me at five."

Boodles said she hadn't the least idea. There were two clocks, and each told a different story, and she had nothing to check them by. She thought it would be past four as it was getting so dark. She lighted the lamp, and the lady noticed the little hands were getting rather red.

When the room was filled with light she noticed more; the girl was quite thin, and she coughed a good deal; nearly all the colour had gone out of her face, and there were lines under her eyes, lines that ought never to be seen at eighteen; her mouth often quivered, and she would start at every sound. Then Mrs. Bellamie heard the wind, and she started too.

"My dear, you cannot, you must not, live here alone," she said, shivering at the idea, and the atmosphere. "It would drive me mad. The loneliness, the wind, and the horrible black moor."

"I have got to put up with it. I have no friends," said Boodles at once.

"I don't know whether I shall pull through, as the worst time is ahead, but I must try. You can't think what it is when the wind is really high.

Sometimes in the evenings I run about the place, and they chase me from one room to another."

"Not men?" cried the lady in horror.

"Things, thoughts, I don't know what they are. The horrors that come when one is always alone. Some nights I scream loud enough for you to hear in Tavistock. I don't know why it should be a relief to scream, but it is."

"You must get away from here," said Mrs. Bellamie decidedly. "We will arrange something for you. Would you take a position as governess, companion to a lady--"

"No," cried Boodles, as if the visitor had insulted her. "I am not going to prison. I would rather lose my senses here than become a servant. If I was companion to a lady I should take the dear old thing by the shoulders and knock her head against the wall every time she ordered me about. Why should I give up my liberty? You wouldn't. I have got a home of my own, and with lodgers all summer I can keep going."

"You cannot do it. You cannot possibly do it," said Mrs. Bellamie. "Will you come and spend Christmas with us?" she asked impulsively. It was a sudden quiver of the girl's mouth that compelled her to give the invitation.

"Oh, I should love it," cried Boodles. Then she added: "Does Mr.

Bellamie wish it?"

The lady became confused, hesitated, and finally had to admit that her husband had not authorised her to speak in his name.

"Then I cannot come. It would have been a great pleasure to me, but of course I couldn't come if he does not want me, and I shouldn't enjoy myself in the least if I thought he had asked me out of charity," she added rather scornfully.

Mrs. Bellamie only smiled and murmured: "Proud little cat."

"Well, I suppose I must be," said Boodles. "Poverty and loneliness sharpen one's feelings, you know. If I was a rich lady I would come and stay at your house, whether Mr. Bellamie wanted me or not. I shouldn't care. But as I am, poor and lonely, and pretty miserable too, I feel I should want to bite and scratch if any one came to do me a favour.

Aubrey is not coming home for Christmas then?" she added quickly, and the next instant was scolding herself for alluding to him again. "I mean you wouldn't ask me if he was coming home."