is pale and pasty; if it isn’t powder, it’s bad digestion.’
‘Miss Whichello!’ cried the outraged spinster.
‘I’m an old woman, my dear, and you must allow me to speak my mind. I’m sure Mrs Pansey always does.’
‘You need not be so very unpleasant! No, really!’
‘The truth is always unpleasant,’ said Mrs Pansey, who could not forbear a thrust even at her own guest, ‘but Miss Whichello doesn’t often hear it,’ with a dig at her rival. ‘Come away, Daisy. Mr Cargrim, next time you preach take for your text, “The tongue is a two-edged sword.”’
‘Do, Mr Cargrim,’ cried Miss Whichello, darting an angry glance at Mrs Pansey, ‘and illustrate it with the one to whom it particularly applies.’
‘Ladies! ladies!’ remonstrated Cargrim, while both combatants ruffled their plumes like two fighting cocks, and the more timid of the spectators scuttled out of the way. How the situation would have ended it is impossible to say, as the two ladies were equally matched, but George saved it by advancing to greet Miss Whichello. When the little woman saw him, she darted forward and shook his hand with unfeigned warmth.
‘My dear Captain Pendle,’ she cried, ‘I am so glad to see you; and thank you for your noble conduct of last night.’
‘Why, Miss Whichello, it was nothing,’ murmured the modest hero.
‘Indeed, I must say it was very valiant,’ said Cargrim, graciously. ‘Do you know, ladies, that Miss Arden was attacked last night by a tramp and Captain Pendle knocked him down?’
‘Oh, really! how very sweet!’ cried Daisy, casting an admiring look on George’s handsome face, which appealed to her appreciation of manly beauty.
‘What was Miss Arden doing to place herself in the position of being attacked by a tramp?’ asked Mrs Pansey, in a hard voice. ‘This must be looked into.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Pansey, I have looked into it myself,’ said Miss Whichello. ‘Captain Pendle, come home with me to luncheon and tell me all about it; Mr Cargrim, you come also.’
Both gentlemen bowed and accepted, the former because he wished to see Mab, the latter because he knew that Captain Pendle did not want him to come. As Miss Whichello moved off with her two guests, Mrs Pansey exclaimed in a loud voice,—
‘Poor young men! Luncheon indeed! They will be starved. I know for a fact that she weighs out the food in scales.’ Then, having had the last word, she went home in triumph.
Chapter XI.
Miss Whichello’s Luncheon-Party
The little lady trotted briskly across the square, and guided her guests to a quaint old house squeezed into one corner of it. Here she had been born some sixty odd years before; here she had lived her life of spinsterhood, save for an occasional visit to London; and here she hoped to die, although at present she kept Death at a safe distance by hygienic means and dietary treatment. The house was a queer survival of three centuries, with a pattern of black oak beams let into a white-washed front. Its roof shot up into a high gable at an acute angle, and was tiled with red clay squares, mellowed by Time to the hue of rusty iron. A long lattice with diamond panes, and geraniums in flower-pots behind them, extended across the lower storey; two little jutting windows, also of the criss-cross pattern, looked like two eyes in the second storey; and high up in the third, the casement of the attic peered out coyly from under the eaves. At the top of a flight of immaculately white steps there was a squat little door painted green and adorned with a brass knocker burnished to the colour of fine gold. The railings of iron round the area were also coloured green, and the appearance of the whole exterior was as spotless and neat as Miss Whichello herself. It was an ideal house for a dainty old spinster such as she was, and rested in the very shadow of the Bishop Gandolf’s cathedral like the nest of a bright-eyed wren.
‘Mab, my dear!’ cried the wren herself, as she led the gentlemen into the drawing-room, ‘I have brought Captain Pendle and Mr Cargrim to luncheon.’
Mab arose out of a deep chair and laid aside the book she was reading. ‘I saw you crossing the square, Captain Pendle,’ she said, shaking his hand. ‘Mr Cargrim, I am glad to see you.’
‘Are you not glad to see me?’ whispered George, in low tones.
‘Do you need me to tell you so?’ was Mab’s reply, with a smile, and that smile answered his question.
‘Oh, my dear, such a heavenly sermon!’ cried Miss Whichello, fluttering about the room; ‘it went to my very heart.’
‘It could not have gone to a better place,’ replied the chaplain, in the gentle voice which George particularly detested. ‘I am sorry to hear you have suffered from your alarm last night, Miss Arden.’
‘My nerves received rather a shock, Mr Cargrim, and I had such a bad headache that I decided to remain at home. I must receive your sermon second-hand from my aunt.’
‘Why not first-hand from me?’ said Cargrim, insinuatingly, whereupon Captain George pulled his moustache and looked savage.
‘Oh, I won’t tax your good nature so far,’ rejoined Mab, laughing. ‘What is it, aunty?’ for the wren was still fluttering and restless.
‘My dear, you must content yourself with Captain Pendle till luncheon, for I want Mr Cargrim to come into the garden and see my fig tree; real figs grow on it, Mr Cargrim,’ said Miss Whichello, solemnly, ‘the very first figs that have ever ripened in Beorminster.’
‘I am glad it is not a barren fig tree,’ said Cargrim, introducing a scriptural allusion in his most clerical manner.
‘Barren indeed! it has five figs on it. Really, sitting under its shade one would fancy one was in Palestine. Do come, Mr Cargrim,’ and Miss Whichello fluttered through the door like an escaping bird.
‘With pleasure; the more so, as I know we shall not be missed.’
‘Damn!’ muttered Captain Pendle, when the door closed on Cargrim’s smile and insinuating looks.
‘Captain Pendle!’ exclaimed Miss Arden, becomingly shocked.
‘Captain Pendle indeed!’ said the young man, slipping his arm round Mab; ‘and why not George?’
‘I thought Mr Cargrim might hear.’
‘He ought to; like the ass, his ears are long enough.’
‘Still, he is anything but an ass—George.’
‘If he isn’t an ass he’s a beast,’ rejoined Pendle, promptly, ‘and it comes to much the same thing.’
‘Well, you need not swear at him.’
‘If I didn’t swear I’d kick him, Mab; and think of the scandal to the Church. Cargrim’s a sneaking, time-serving sycophant. I wonder my father can endure him; I can’t!’
‘I
