“Oh, drat you and your fingers!” said nurse. “You think of nothing but those blessed trashy novels you are always reading. You must turn to now. The master is certain to be back by the late afternoon train, and this room has got to be put into apple-pie order before he returns.”
“Yes,” said John; “we won’t lose the chance. We’ll take each book from its place on the shelf, dust it, and put it back again. We have a long job before us, so don’t you think any more of your novels and your grand ladies and gentlemen, Betty, my woman.”
“I have ceased to think of them,” said Betty.
She stood with her hands hanging straight to her sides; her face was quite pale.
“I trusted, and my trust failed me,” she continued. “I was at a wedding lately, John—you remember, don’t you?—Dick Jones’s wedding, at the other side of the Forest. There was a beautiful wedding cake, frosted over and almond-iced underneath3, and ornaments4 on it, too—cupids and doves and such-like. A pair of little doves sat as perky as you please on the top of the cake, billing and cooing like anything. It made my eyes water even to look at ’em. You may be sure I didn’t think of Mary Dugdale, the bride that was, nor of poor Jones, neither; although he is a good looking man enough—I never said he wasn’t. But my heart was in my mouth thinking of that dear Dook of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton.”170
“Who in the name of fortune is he?” asked nurse.
“A hero of mine,” said Betty.
Her face looked a little paler and more mournful even than when she had begun to speak.
“He’s dead,” she said, and she whisked a handkerchief out of her pocket and applied5 it to her eyes. “It was bandits as carried him off. He loved that innocent virgin6 he took for his wife like anything. Over and over have I thought of them, and privately7 made up my mind that if I came across his second I’d give him my heart.”
“Betty, you must be mad,” said nurse.
“Maybe you are mad,” retorted Betty, her face flaming, “but I am not. It was a girl quite as poor as me that he took for his spouse8; and why shouldn’t there be another like him? That’s what I thought, and when the wedding came to an end I asked Mary Dugdale to give me a bit of the cake all private for myself. She’s a good-natured sort is Mary, though not equal to Jones—not by no means. She cut a nice square of the cake, a beautiful chunk9, black with richness as to the fruit part, yellow as to the almond, and white as the driven snow as to the icing. And, if you’ll believe it, there was just the tip of a wing of one of those angelic little doves cut off with the icing. Well, I brought it home with me, and I slept on it just according to the old saw which my mother taught me. Mother used to say, ‘Betty, if you want to dream of your true love, you will take a piece of wedding-cake that belongs to a fresh-made bride, and you will put it into your right-foot stocking, and tie it with your left-foot garter, and put it under your pillow. And when you get into bed, not a mortal word will you utter, or the spell is broke. And that you will do, Betty,’ said my mother, ‘for three nights running. And then you will put the stocking and the garter and the cake away for three nights, and at the end of those nights you will sleep again on it for three nights; and then you will put it away once more for three nights, and you will sleep on it again for three nights. And at the end of the last night, why, the man you dream of is he.’”
“Well, and did you go in for all that gibberish?” asked nurse, with scorn.
She had a duster in her hand, and she vigorously flicked10 Mr. Dale’s desk as she spoke11.
“To be sure I did; and I thought as much over the matter as ought to have got me a decent husband. Well, when the last night come I lay me down to sleep as peaceful as an angel, and I folded my hands and shut my eyes, and wondered what his beautiful name would be, and if he’d be a dook or a marquis. I incline to a dook myself, having, so to speak, fallen in love with the Dook of Mauleverer-Wolverhampton of blessed memory. But what do you think happened? It’s enough to cure a body, that it is.”171
“Well, what?” asked nurse.
“I dreamt of no man in the creation except John there. If that isn’t enough to make a body sick, and to cure all their romance once and for ever, my name ain’t Betty Snowden.”
John laughed and turned a dull red at this unexpected ending to Betty’s story.
“Now let’s clean up,” she said; “and don’t twit me any more about my dreams. They were shattered, so to speak, in the moment of victory.”
The children were called in, particularly Briar and Patty, and the room was made quite fresh and sweet, the carpet taken up, the floor scrubbed, a new rug (bought long ago for the auspicious12 moment) put down, white curtains hung at the windows in place of the dreadful old moreen, every book dusted and put in its place, and the papers piled up in orderly fashion on a wagonette which was moved into the room for the purpose. Finally the children and servants gazed around them with an air of appreciation13.
“He can’t help liking14 it,” said Briar.
“I wonder if he will,” said Patty.
“What nonsense, Patty! Father is human, after all, and we have not disturbed one single blessed thing.”
Soon wheels were heard, and the children rushed out to greet their returning parent.
“How is Pauline, father?” asked Briar in an anxious voice.
“Pauline?” replied Mr. Dale, pushing his thin hand abstractedly through his thin locks. “What of her? Isn’t she here?”
“Nonsense, father!” said Patty. “You went to see her. She was very ill; she was nearly drowned. You know all about it. Wake up, dad, and tell us how she is.”
“To be sure,” said Mr. Dale. “I quite recall the circumstance now. Your sister is much better. I left her in bed, a little flushed, but looking very well and pretty. Pauline promises to be quite a pretty girl. She has improved wonderfully of late. Verena was there, too, and Pen, and your good aunt. Yes, I saw them all. Comfortable lodgings15 enough for those who don’t care for books. From what I saw of your sister she did not seem to be at all seriously ill, and I cannot imagine why I was summoned. Don’t keep me now, my dears; I must get back to my work. The formation of that last sentence from Plato’s celebrated16 treatise17 doesn’t please me. It lacks the extreme polish of the original. My dear Briar, how you stare! There is no possible reason, Briar and Patty, why the English translation should not be every bit as pure as the Greek. Our language has extended itself considerably18 of late, and close application and study may recall to my mind the most fitting words. But there is one thing 172certain, my dear girls—— Ah! is that you, nurse? Miss Pauline is better. I was talking about Plato, nurse. The last translation I have been making from his
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CHAPTER XXV. “YOU ARE NOT TO TELL.”
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