“He wants at least a fortnight, ma’am. He has a sort of a hacking cough, which he does his best to keep under. And the doctors say that the smell of ink out of a pewter inkstand, and the inhaling of blotting-paper – such as we inhale all day – are almost certain, in hot weather, to root a tussis, or at any rate a pituita, inwards.”
Mrs. Lovejoy was much impressed; and tenfold so when she tried to think what those maladies might be.
“Dear me!” she said: “it is dreadful to think of. I know too well what those sad complaints are. My dear grandfather died of them both. Do you think now, Mr. Lorraine, that Mr. Malahide could be persuaded to spare you both for the rest of the week?”
“I scarcely think that he could, Mrs. Lovejoy. We are his right hand, and his left. Your son, of course, his dexter hand; and my poor self the weaker member. Still, if you were to write to him, nicely (as of course you would be sure to write), he might make an effort to get on, with some of his inferior pupils.”
“It shall be done, before the van goes – by the very next mail, I mean. And if they can spare you, do you think that you could put up with your very poor quarters, for a few days longer, Mr. Lorraine?”
“I never was in such quarters before. And I never felt so comfortable,” he answered, with a gush of truth, to expiate much small hypocrisy. And thereby he settled himself for ever in her very best graces. If Mrs. Lovejoy had any pride – and she always told herself she had none – that pride lay in her best feather-beds.
A smile quite worthy of her larger husband, and of her pleasant homestead, spread itself over her thoughtful face; and Hilary, for the first time, saw that her daughter, after all, was born of her. What can be sweeter than a smile, won from a sensible woman like that?
“Then you give us some hope that we may endeavour to keep you a few days more, sir?”
“The endeavour will be on my part,” he answered with his most elegant bow; “as all the temptation falls on me.”
“I do hope that Mr. Malahide will do his best to spare you both. Though to lose both his right hand and his left hand must be very melancholy.”
“To a lawyer, Mrs. Lovejoy, that is nothing. We think nothing of such trifles. We are ready to fight when we have no hands, nor even a leg to stand upon.”
“Yes, to be sure, you live by fighting, as the poor sailors and soldiers do. The general of the attorneys now is my first cousin, once removed. Now can you tell me what opinion he has formed of my Gregory? Of course there must be a number of people trying to keep my poor boy back. Pressing him down, as they always do, with all that narrow jealousy. But his mother’s cousin might be trusted to give him fair play, now, don’t you think?”
“One never can tell,” answered Hilary; “the faster a young fellow goes up the tree, the harder the monkeys pelt him. But if I only had a quarter of your son’s ability, I would defy them all at once, from the Lord Chief-Justice downward.”
“Oh no, now, Mr. Lorraine; that really would be bad advice. He has not been called to the Bar as yet; and he must remember that there are people many years in front of him. No, no; let Gregory wait for his proper time in its proper course, and steadily rise to the top of the tree. With patience, Mr. Lorraine, you know, with patience all things come to pass. But I must go to the house at once, and write to Mr. Malahide. Do you think that he would be offended, if I asked him to accept a basket of our choicest cherries and strawberries?”
“I scarcely think that he would regard it as a mortal injury; especially if you were to put it as a tribute from his grateful pupil, Hilary Lorraine.”
“How kind of you to let me use your name! And you have such influence with him, Gregory is always telling me. No doubt he will accept them so.”
However, when she came to consider the matter, Mrs. Lovejoy, with shameful treachery, sent them as a little offering from that grateful pupil her own son: while she laid upon Hilary all the burden of this lengthened mitching-time; as in the main perhaps was just. Moreover, she took good care that Shorne should have no chance of appearing in chambers, as he was only too eager to do; for her shrewd sense told her that the sharp wits there would find him a joy for ever, and an enduring joke against Gregory.
It is scarcely needful to say, perhaps, that throughout the rest of the week, Lorraine did his utmost to bring about snug little interviews with Mabel. And she, having made up her mind to keep him henceforth at his distance, felt herself bound by that resolution to afford him a glimpse or two, once in a way. For she really had a great deal to do; and it would have been cruel to deny her even the right to talk of it. And Hilary carried a basket so much better than anybody else, and his touch was so light, and he stepped here and there so obediently and so cleverly, and he always looked away so nicely, if any briery troubles befell – as now and then of course must be – that Mabel began every day to think how dreadfully she would miss him.
And then, as if it were not enough to please her ears, and eyes, and mind, he even contrived to conciliate the most grateful part of the human system, as well as the most intelligent. For on the Tuesday afternoon, the turn of the work, and the courses of fruit, led them near a bushy corner, where the crafty brook stole through. As clever and snug a dingle as need be, for a pair of young people to drop accidentally out of sight and ear-shot. For here, the corner of the orchard fell away, as a quarry does, yet was banked with grass, and ridges, so that children might take hands and run. But if they did so, they would be certain to come to grief at the bottom, unless they could clear at a jump three yards, which would puzzle most of them. For here the brook, without any noise, came under a bank of good brown loam, with a gentle shallow slide, and a bottom content to be run over.
“Trout, as I’m a living sinner!” cried Hilary with a fierce delight, as he fetched up suddenly on the brink, and a dozen streaks darted up the stream, like the throw of a threaded shuttle. “My prophetic soul, if I didn’t guess it! But I seem to forget almost everything. Why Miss Lovejoy, Miss Mabel Lovejoy, Mabel Miss Lovejoy (or any other form, insisting on the prefix despotically), have I known you for a century or more, and you never told me there were trout in the brook!”
“Oh, do let me see them; please to show me where,” cried Mabel, coming carefully down the steep, lest her slender feet should slip: “they are such dears, I do assure you. My mother and I are so fond of them. But my father says they are all bones and tail.”
“I will show them to you with the greatest pleasure, only you must do just what I order you. They are very shy things, you know, almost as shy as somebody – ”
“Mabel, Mabel, Mab, where are you?” came a loud shout over the crest; and then Gregory’s square shoulders appeared – a most unwelcome spectacle.
“Why, here I am to be sure,” she answered; “where else do you suppose I should be? The people must be looked after, I suppose. And if you won’t do it, of course I must.”
“I don’t see any people to look after here, except indeed – however, you seem to have looked so hard, it has made you quite red in the face, I declare!”
“Now Greg, my boy,” cried Hilary, suddenly coming to the rescue; “I called your sister down here on purpose to tell me what those things in the water are. They look almost like some sort of fish!”
“Why trout, Lorraine! Didn’t you know that? I thought that you were a great fisherman. If you like to have a try at them I can fit you out. Though I don’t suppose you could do much in this weather.”
“Miss Lovejoy, did you ever taste a trout?” Hilary asked this question, as if not a word had yet passed on the subject.
“Oh, yes,” answered Mabel, no less oblivious; “my brother Charles used to catch a good many. They are such a treat to my dear mother, and so good for her constitution. But I don’t think my father appreciates them.”
“Allow me to help you up this steep rise. It was most inconsiderate of me to call you down, Miss Lovejoy.”
“Pray