“Well, I am thinking what could have been St. George’s motive for concealing the news from me when he came round here last night to tell me he had left Ellin safely at Philip West’s,” replied she.
“Did he say nothing to you about William Brook?”
“Not a word. He said what a nasty drive home it had been in the teeth of the storm and wind, but he did not mention William Brook. He seemed tired, and did not stay above a minute or two. John was out. Oh, here is John.”
Mr. Delorane, hearing our voices, I suppose, came in from the office. Aunt Hester told him the news at once—that William Brook was come home.
“I am downright glad,” interrupted the lawyer emphatically. “What with one delay and another, one might have begun to think him lost: it was September, you know, that he originally announced himself for. What do you say?”—his own words having partly drowned Aunt Hester’s—“St. George drove him home last night from Worcester? Drove Brook? Nonsense! Had St. George brought Brook he would have told me of it.”
“But he did bring him, sir,” affirmed Tod: and he went over the history once more. Mr. Delorane did not take it in.
“Are these lads playing a joke upon me, Squire?” asked he.
“Look here, Delorane. That we passed St. George in Dip Lane is a fact; I knew the cut of his gig and horse. Some one was with him; I saw that much. The boys called out that it was William Brook, and began shouting to him. Whether it was he, or not, I can’t say; I had enough to do with my horses, I can tell you; they did not like the wind, Blister especially.”
“It was William Brook, safe enough, sir,” interposed Tod. “Do you think I don’t know him? We spoke to him, and he spoke to us. Why should you doubt it?”
“Well, I suppose I can’t doubt it, as you speak so positively,” said Mr. Delorane. “The news took me by surprise, you see. Why on earth did St. George not tell me of it? I shall take him to task when he comes in. Any way, I am glad Brook’s come. We will drink his health.”
He opened what was in those days called the cellaret—and a very convenient article it was for those who drank wine as a rule—and put on the table some of the glasses that were standing on the sideboard. Then we drank health and happiness to William Brook.
“And to some one else also,” cried bold Tod, winking at Aunt Hester.
“You two boys can go on to Mrs. Brook’s,” cried the Squire; “I shall stop here a bit. Tell William I am glad he has surmounted the perils of the treacherous seas.”
“And tell him he may come to see me if he likes,” added the lawyer. “I expect he did not get a note I wrote to him a few months back, or he’d have been here this morning.”
Away we went to Mrs. Brook’s. And the first thing that flabbergasted us (the expression was Tod’s, not mine) was to be met by a denial of the servant’s. Upon Tod asking to see Mr. William, she stared at us and said he was not back from his travels.
“Come in,” called out Minty from the parlour; “I know your voices.” She sat at the table, her paint-box before her. Minty painted very nice pieces in water-colours: the one in process was a lovely bit of scenery taken from Little Malvern. Mrs. Brook was out.
“What did I hear you saying to Ann about William—that he had come home?” she began to us, without getting up from her work—for we were too intimate to be upon any ceremony with one another. “He is not come yet. I only wish he was.”
“But he is come,” said Tod. “He came last night. We saw him and spoke to him.”
Minty put down her camel-hair pencil then, and turned round. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“Mr. St. George drove William home from Worcester. We passed them in the gig in Dip Lane.”
Minty retorted by asking whether we were not dreaming; and for a minute or two we kept at cross-purposes. She held to it that they had seen nothing of her brother; that he was not at Timberdale.
“Mamma never had a wink of sleep last night, for thinking of the dreadful gale William must be in at sea. Your fancy misled you,” went on Minty, calmly touching-up the cottage in her painting—and Tod looked as if he would like to beat her.
But it did really seem that William had not come, and we took our departure. I don’t think I had ever seen Tod look so puzzled.
“I wish I may be shot if I can understand this!” said he.
“Could we have been mistaken in thinking it was Brook?” I was beginning; and Tod turned upon me savagely.
“I swear it was Brook. There! And you know it as well as I, Mr. Johnny. Where can he be hiding himself? What is the meaning of it?”
It is my habit always to try to account for things that seem unaccountable; to search out reasons and fathom them; and you would be surprised at the light that will sometimes crop up. An idea flashed across me now.
“Can Brook be ill, Tod, think you?—done up with his voyage, or something—and St. George is nursing him at his house for a day or two before he shows himself to Timberdale?” And Tod thought it might be so.
Getting back to Mr. Delorane’s, we found him and the Squire sitting at the table still. St. George, just come in, was standing by, hat in hand, and they were both tackling him at once.
“What do you say?” asked St. George of his master, when he found room for a word. “That I brought William Brook home here last night from Worcester! Why, what can have put such a thing into your head, sir?”
“Didn’t you bring him?” cried the Squire. “Didn’t you drive him home in your gig?”
“That I did not. I have not seen William Brook.”
He spoke in a ready, though surprised tone, not at all like one who is shuffling with the truth, or telling a fable, and looked from one to another of his two questioners, as if not yet understanding them. The Squire pushed his spectacles to the top of his brow and stared at St. George. He did not understand, either.
“Look here, St. George: do you deny that it was you we passed in Dip Lane last night—and your grey horse—and your gig?”
“Why should I deny it?” quietly returned St. George. “I drew as close as I could to the hedge as a matter of precaution to let you go by, Squire, you were driving so quickly. And a fine shouting you greeted me with,” he added, turning to Tod, with a slight laugh.
“The greeting was not intended for you; it was for William Brook,” answered Tod, his voice bearing a spice of antagonism; for he thought he was being played with.
St. George was evidently at a loss yet, and stood in silence. All in a moment, his face lighted up.
“Surely,” he cried impulsively, “you did not take that man in the gig for William Brook!”
“It was William Brook. Who else was it?”
“A stranger. A stranger to me and to the neighbourhood. A man to whom I gave a lift.”
Tod’s face presented a picture. Believing, as he did still, that it was Brook in the gig, the idea suggested by me—that St. George was concealing Brook at his house out of good-fellowship—grew stronger and stronger. But he considered that, as it had come to this, St. George ought to say so.
“Where’s the use of your continuing to deny it, St. George?” he asked. “You had Brook there, and you know you had.”
“But I tell you that it was not Brook,” returned St. George. “Should I deny it, if it had been he? You talk like a child.”
“Has Brook been away so long that we shouldn’t know him, do you suppose?” retorted quick-tempered Tod. “Why! as a proof that it was Brook, he shouted back his greeting to us, taking off his hat to wave it in answer to ours. Would a strange man have done that?”
“The man did nothing of