“He’ll be more steady when he has taken a wife,” said the old man.
“In the meantime what becomes of the cavalry?”
“I dare say you’ll know all about that before long,” said the parson laughing.
“Now, my dear, how can you be so foolish as to fill the girl’s head with nonsense of that kind?” said Mrs. Rossiter, who at that moment came out from the front door. “And you’re doing John an injustice. You are making people believe that he has said that which he has not said.”
Alice at the moment was very angry—as angry as she well could be. It was certain that Mrs. Rossiter did not know what her son had said or had not said. But it was cruel that she who had put forward no claim, who had never been forward in seeking her lover, should be thus almost publicly rebuked. Quiet as she wished to be, it was necessary that she should say one word in her own defence. “I don’t think Mr. Rossiter’s little joke will do John any injustice or me any harm,” she said. “But, as it may be taken seriously, I hope he will not repeat it.”
“He could not do better for himself. That’s my opinion,” said the old man, turning back into the house. There had been words before on the subject between him and his wife, and he was not well pleased with her at this moment.
“My dear Alice, I am sure you know that I mean everything the best for you,” said Mrs. Rossiter.
“If nobody would mean anything, but just let me alone, that would be best. And as for nonsense, Mrs. Rossiter, don’t you know of me that I’m not likely to be carried away by foolish ideas of that kind?”
“I do know that you are very good.”
“Then why should you talk at me as though I were very bad?” Mrs. Rossiter felt that she had been reprimanded, and was less inclined than ever to accept Alice as a daughter-in-law.
Alice, as she walked home, was low in spirits, and angry with herself because it was so. People would be fools. Of course that was to be expected. She had known all along that Mrs. Rossiter wanted a grander wife for her son, whereas the parson was anxious to have her for his daughter-in-law. Of course she loved the parson better than his wife. But why was it that she felt at this moment that Mrs. Rossiter would prevail?
“Of course it will be so,” she said to herself. “I see it now. And I suppose he is right. But then certainly he ought not to have come here. But perhaps he comes because he wishes to—see Miss Wanless.” She went a little out of her road home, not only to dry a tear, but to rid herself of the effect of it, and then spent the remainder of the afternoon swinging her brothers and sisters in the garden.
II
Major Rossiter
“Perhaps he is coming here to see Miss Wanless,” Alice had said to herself. And in the course of that week she found that her surmise was correct. John Rossiter stayed only one night at the parsonage, and then went over to Brook Park where lived Sir Walter Wanless and all the Wanlesses. The parson had not so declared when he told Alice that his son was coming, but John himself said on his arrival that this was a special visit made to Brook Park, and not to Beetham. It had been promised for the last three months, though only fixed lately. He took the trouble to come across to the doctor’s house with the express purpose of explaining the fact. “I suppose you have always been intimate with them,” said Mrs. Dugdale, who was sitting with Alice and a little crowd of the children round them. There was a tone of sarcasm in the words not at all hidden. “We all know that you are a great deal finer than we mere village folk. We don’t know the Wanlesses, but of course you do. You’ll find yourself much more at home at Brook Park than you can in such a place as this.” All that, though not spoken, was contained in the tone of the lady’s speech.
“We have always been neighbours,” said John Rossiter.
“Neighbours ten miles off!” said Mrs. Dugdale.
“I dare say the Good Samaritan lived thirty miles off,” said Alice.
“I don’t think distance has much to do with it,” said the Major.
“I like my neighbours to be neighbourly. I like Beetham neighbours,” said Mrs. Dugdale. There was a reproach in every word of it. Mrs. Dugdale had heard of Miss Georgiana Wanless, and Major Rossiter knew that she had done so. After her fashion the lady was accusing him for deserting Alice.
Alice understood it also, and yet it behoved her to hold herself well up and be cheerful. “I like Beetham people best myself,” she said, “but then it is because I don’t know any other. I remember going to Brook Park once, when there was a party of children, a hundred years ago, and I thought it quite a paradise. There was a profusion of strawberries by which my imagination has been troubled ever since. You’ll just be in time for the strawberries, Major Rossiter.” He had always been John till quite lately—John with the memories of childhood; but now he had become Major Rossiter.
She went out into the garden with him for a moment as he took his leave—not quite alone, as a little boy of two years old was clinging to her hand. “If I had my way,” she said, “I’d have my neighbours everywhere—at any distance. I envy a man chiefly for that.”
“Those one loves best should be very near, I think.”
“Those one loves best of all? Oh yes, so that one may do something. It wouldn’t do not to have you every day, would it, Bobby?” Then she allowed the willing little urchin to struggle up into her arms
