The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes

'Gone out!' He put down the coffee-pot-his saucer was full. 'Gone out where?'

'Only to buy things. You know her vicar is coming to take her away the day after to-morrow, and mother wanted her to look tidy enough to travel with the vicar; so she gave her a sovereign.'

'Ah, yes; your mother said something about it.'

'And yet she won't answer the bells,' said Rosie, 'and mother's asthma is worse, so I don't know whether I shall be able to take my lesson to-day, Mr. Lancelot. I'm so sorry, because it's the last.'

Rosie probably did not intend the ambiguity of the phrase. There was real regret in her voice.

'Do you like learning, then?' said Lancelot, softened, for the first time, towards his pupil. His nerves seemed strangely flaccid to-day. He did not at all feel the relief he should have felt at forgoing his daily infliction.

'Ever so much, sir. I know I laugh too much, sometimes; but I don't mean it, sir. I suppose I couldn't go on with the lessons after you leave here?' She looked at him wistfully.

'Well'-he had crumbled the toast all to little pieces now-'I don't quite know. Perhaps I shan't go away after all.'

Rosie's face lit up. 'Oh, I'll tell mother,' she exclaimed joyously.

'No, don't tell her yet; I haven't quite settled. But if I stay-of course the lessons can go on as before.'

'Oh, I do hope you'll stay,' said Rosie, and went out of the room with airy steps, evidently bent on disregarding his prohibition, if, indeed, it had penetrated to her consciousness.

Lancelot made no pretence of eating breakfast; he had it removed, and then fished out his comic opera. But nothing would flow from his pen; he went over to the window, and stood thoughtfully drumming on the panes with it, and gazing at the little drab-coloured street, with its high roof of mist; along which the faded dollar continued to spin imperceptibly. Suddenly he saw Mary Ann turn the corner, and come along towards the house, carrying a big parcel and a paper bag in her ungloved hands. How buoyantly she walked! He had never before seen her move in free space, nor realised how much of the grace of a sylvan childhood remained with her still. What a pretty colour there was on her cheeks, too!

He ran down to the street door and opened it before she could knock. The colour on her cheeks deepened at the sight of him, but now that she was near he saw her eyes were swollen with crying.

'Why do you go out without gloves, Mary Ann?' he inquired sternly. 'Remember you're a lady now.'

She started and looked down at his boots, then up at his face.

'Oh, yes, I found them, Mary Ann. A nice graceful way of returning me my presents, Mary Ann. You might at least have waited till Christmas. Then I should have thought Santa Claus sent them.'

'Please, sir, I thought it was the surest way for me to send them back.'

'But what made you send them back at all?'

Mary Ann's lip quivered, her eyes were cast down. 'Oh-Mr. Lancelot-you know,' she faltered.

'But I don't know,' he said sharply.

'Please let me go downstairs, Mr. Lancelot. Missus must have heard me come in.'

'You shan't go downstairs till you've told me what's come over you. Come upstairs to my room.'

'Yessir.'

She followed him obediently. He turned round brusquely, 'Here, give me your parcels.' And almost snatching them from her, he carried them upstairs and deposited them on his table on top of the comic opera.

'Now, then, sit down. You can take off your hat and jacket.'

'Yessir.'

He helped her to do so.

'Now, Mary Ann, why did you return me those gloves?'

'Please, sir, I remember in our village when-when'-she felt a diffidence in putting the situation into words and wound up quickly, 'something told me I ought to.'

'I don't understand you,' he grumbled, comprehending only too well. 'But why couldn't you come in and give them to me instead of behaving in that ridiculous way?'

'I didn't want to see you again,' she faltered.

He saw her eyes were welling over with tears.

'You were crying again last night,' he said sharply.

'Yessir.'

'But what did you have to cry about now? Aren't you the luckiest girl in the world?'

'Yessir.'

As she spoke a flood of sunlight poured suddenly into the room; the sun had broken through the clouds, the worn dollar had become a dazzling gold-piece. The canary stirred in its cage.

'Then what were you crying about?'

'I didn't want to be lucky.'

'You silly girl-I have no patience with you. And why didn't you want to see me again?'

'Please, Mr. Lancelot, I knew you wouldn't like it.'

'Whatever put that into your head?'

'I knew it, sir,' said Mary Ann, firmly. 'It came to me when I was crying. I was thinking of all sorts of things-of my mother and our Sally, and the old pig that used to get so savage, and about the way the organ used to play in church, and then all at once somehow I knew it would be best for me to do what you told me-to buy my dress and go back with the vicar, and be a good girl, and not bother you, because you were so good to me, and it was wrong for me to worry you and make you miserable.'

'Tw-oo! Tw-oo!' It was the canary starting on a preliminary carol.

'So I thought it best,' she concluded tremulously, 'not to see you again. It would only be two days, and after that it would be easier. I could always be thinking of you just the same, Mr. Lancelot, always. That wouldn't annoy you, sir, would it? Because you know, sir, you wouldn't know it.'

Lancelot was struggling to find a voice. 'But didn't you forget something you had to do, Mary Ann?' he said in hoarse accents.

She raised her eyes swiftly a moment, then lowered them again.

'I don't know; I didn't mean to,' she said apologetically.

'Didn't you forget that I told you to come to me and get my answer to your question?'

'No, sir, I didn't forget. That was what I was thinking of all night.'

'About your asking me to marry you?'

'Yessir.'

'And my saying it was impossible?'

'Yessir, and I said, 'Why is it impossible?' and you said, 'Because-' and then you left off; but please, Mr. Lancelot, I didn't want to know the answer this morning.'

'But I want to tell you. Why don't you want to know?'

'Because I found out for myself, Mr. Lancelot. That's what I found out when I was crying-but there was nothing to find out, sir. I knew it all along. It was silly of me to ask you-but you know I am silly sometimes, sir, like I was when my mother was dying. And that was why I made up my mind not to bother you any more, Mr. Lancelot, I knew you wouldn't like to tell me straight out.'

'And what was the answer you found out? Ah, you won't speak. It looks as if you don't like to tell me straight out. Come, come, Mary Ann, tell me why-why-it is impossible.'

She looked up at last and said slowly and simply, 'Because I am not good enough for you, Mr. Lancelot.'

He put his hands suddenly to his eyes. He did not see the flood of sunlight-he did not hear the mad jubilance of the canary.

'No, Mary Ann,' his voice was low and trembling. 'I will tell you why it is impossible, I didn't know last night, but I know now. It is impossible, because-you are right, I don't like to tell you straight out.'

She opened her eyes wide, and stared at him in puzzled expectation.

'Mary Ann,' he bent his head, 'it is impossible-because I am not good enough for you.'

Mary Ann grew scarlet. Then she broke into a little nervous laugh. 'Oh, Mr. Lancelot, don't make fun of me.'

'Believe me, my dear,' he said tenderly, raising his head; 'I wouldn't make fun of you for two million million dollars. It is the truth-the bare, miserable, wretched truth. I am not worthy of you, Mary Ann.'

'I don't understand you, sir,' she faltered.