The Baker’s Daughter (18 page)

Sue could not.

“I've had several people inquiring for him,” continued Mr. Hedley, “and quite a lot of letters—I don't know what to do with them. I must wait, I suppose. Perhaps he'll write.”

Sue did not think it likely. Darnay might pretend that he didn't care what the world thought of his new medium, but in his heart of hearts, he was bitterly wounded, and it had been a further blow to his pride as a painter to have to return to his old style for the hundred-guinea portrait.

“Oh, why didn't you
believe
in him!” she exclaimed. “Why ever didn't you, Mr. Hedley? It would have made all the difference to him if you had given him a little encouragement. Surely you must have known that the new pictures were good!”

“You can't kick me harder than I'm kicking myself,” declared Mr. Hedley ruefully. “I knew the pictures were good—of course I did—but I thought they were unsalable. It seemed such a
waste
when I could sell the others so well… I hoped that when he found it wouldn't work, he would go back to the old technique.”

“You don't know him if you thought that,” Sue said firmly.

Mr. Hedley could find no reply to that. “I'm a businessman,” he said, throwing out his hands.

“Oh, I see! I thought you were an art critic,” said Sue, with unconscious irony.

Mr. Hedley was somewhat annoyed. He thought of several cutting retorts but decided not to utter them, for it was to his interest to keep in with Miss Pringle. She might be useful in tracing Darnay, and he was extremely anxious to trace Darnay and lure him back to the fold. Mr. Hedley wanted the large commission on the sale of Darnay's pictures in America; he wanted to be the only British agent for the new type of Darnays. This being so, Mr. Hedley returned a soft answer to the insult that had been offered to him and rose to show that the uncomfortable interview was at an end.

Sue took the hint and departed, leaving her address and promising to call in at the “galleries” next time she found herself in the neighborhood.

* * *

“Now who is she?” inquired Mr. Hedley when Sue had gone. “Who is she, eh?” It was a rhetorical question, of course, for Edward could not be expected to know who the visitor was any more than Mr. Hedley himself. In fact, he was a good deal less likely to know, not having enjoyed the doubtful pleasure of a private conversation with Miss Pringle.

“Gaga!” declared Edward, waggling his head idiotically.

“Gaga!” cried Mr. Hedley indignantly. “Why on earth can't you speak English? Need we have Yiddish words foisted upon us? Listen to me, Edward, that woman is no more ‘gaga' than you are, not so much, if the truth were told. Besides, I didn't say ‘What is she?' I said. ‘Who is she?' She knows Darnay well; that's obvious.”

“Knew him in Scotland at that farm he took,” suggested Edward in a meek voice.

Mr. Hedley stood quite still for a few moments thinking deeply. “Yes,” he said at last. “Yes, that's it. Darnay told me he had met Sir James Faulds of Beil—said something about a niece too, didn't he?”

“Sir James wanted him to paint her,” replied Edward, “but I don't see what that—”

“You don't see!” Mr. Hedley exclaimed. “Why, that
is
the niece, of course.”

Edward could not help smiling, for it was so like the boss to jump to conclusions of this kind—especially where the nobility was concerned. The boss was an unconscionable snob and enjoyed nothing better than to see Lord This or Sir Somebody That strolling about the gallery and looking at the pictures. It mattered little whether they bought anything—and to tell the truth, they very seldom did—their mere presence gave him joy.

“You may smile, Edward,” said Mr. Hedley irritably. “You may smile like Mona Lisa if you like, but I shouldn't be here now if I hadn't been able to put two and two together and make four. You've no
flair,
Edward; that's what's the matter with you—no
flair
. I knew that girl was Somebody the moment I laid eyes on her. These old Scottish families have a sort of natural dignity—it's unmistakable.”

Sue did not feel bound to keep the story of her adventures from Aunt Bella, for Aunt Bella was as safe as the bank and knew so much already about Darnay's affairs that it seemed absurd not to tell her of the new development. It was fortunate for Sue that she did not feel bound to secrecy; she was bursting with the news of Darnay's success, and she could hardly get home quick enough to recount all her adventures to her aunt.

Miss Bulloch was an extremely good listener as Sue was already aware. She nodded and smiled and exclaimed rapturously over the discomfiture of Mr. Hedley and laughed heartily at Sue's description of “Edward.”

“They're queer folk, these English,” she declared at last. “I've lived among them twenty years and they still divert me. Mind you, I like them, Sue, but there's something awful silly about them. You wouldn't like to take a course of French lessons, I suppose!”

Sue was used to Aunt Bella by this time, and the sudden change of subject did not startle her. She turned her mind swiftly from the vagaries of the English to the language of the French and considered the proposal seriously. “Well, I wouldn't mind,” she declared.

“That's settled then,” said Aunt Bella (who understood her niece about as well as her niece understood
her
and was therefore aware that when Sue said she “wouldn't mind” it meant she was enchanted at the idea of French lessons). “It's yon Frenchman in number thirty,” she added. “He's wanting pupils, and I'm sorry for the man.”

This bald statement put Sue in complete command of the facts. The Frenchman could not pay his bill, and Aunt Bella, who had a heart of gold, was quite incapable of turning him into the street.

“It would be useful,” continued Aunt Bella, trying to justify herself and to pretend that the kind thought was not a kind thought at all but sheer business acumen. “It would be awful useful, if you could talk French. I get quite a good few French folk here. I'll put it on my cards too: ‘
Ici on parle français
'—or whatever it is. I'm getting some new cards printed, so you had best start tomorrow.”

M. Delbos was a tall, thin man with graying hair. He had come to England to write a book that was going to make his fortune, but the book had taken longer to write than he had imagined, and he had run out of funds. Authors must sleep and eat like other people, so he was obliged to eke out his small income by taking pupils. It was a waste of his precious time, but it could not be helped, and although he was annoyed with his pupils, and uninterested in them, he was a conscientious man and took pains to instruct them well. He welcomed Miss Bulloch's niece with a tired smile and, sweeping his work aside, invited her to sit down and tell him how much she knew.

“I learned French at school,” replied Sue, looking at him with her straight gaze, “but I've forgotten every word of it, so we'll start at the beginning if you don't mind.”

“I would rather a thousand times,” declared M. Delbos “We will start with the pronunciation and then we shall not get that distressing ‘meow, meow'—as if you were a little cat.”

But Miss Pringle had no distressing meow; her vowels were perfectly clear, and they were able to progress rapidly from pronunciation to reading and conversation.

M. Delbos became interested in his new pupil and gave her of his best. He liked her naïveté and her clear straight eyes. She was not like a woman at all, this niece of Miss Bulloch's, but neither was she like a man.

“How well do I talk?” she inquired one day when she had been visiting his sitting room for about a month.

He looked at her inquiringly. “How well?” he said.

“Yes,” said Sue. “Do I talk horrible broken French like some people talk horrible broken English—the kind of English that gives you a pain?”

“No,” said M. Delbos, smiling. “Your pronunciation is good. It is very nearly perfect. It gives me no pain to hear you speak my language—none at all. May I ask why you are so anxious to acquire a good pronunciation of my tongue?”

Sue blushed. “It's not a very nice reason,” she said.

M. Delbos waited for a few moments, hoping that Miss Pringle would disclose the “not very nice reason” for her anxiety to speak good French, but she said no more, and the reason remained a mystery for all time. It was one of those small mysteries that tease the mind at odd moments, and she would have been surprised if she had known how often her instructor thought about it and wondered.

It was very simple really, and the reason was a human if not a very worthy one. Sue had never forgotten the way in which she had been tricked by Ovette—the memory of it rankled in her breast—and it seemed to her that if she learned to speak the woman's language, and learned to speak it better than the woman could speak hers, she would be wiping out part of the old score. If she ever saw Ovette again, it would be very pleasant to be able to reply to her appalling English in reasonably good French, and even if she never saw her again—and she had no wish to renew the acquaintance—she would feel that she had won an advantage over her enemy. Sue did not reason it out in so clear and detailed a fashion, of course. She only thought,
What fun it would be if I met her one day in the street or gazing into one of her beloved shop windows and could start talking French to her!

The lessons were a great success. They filled her mind so that she had less time to think about Darnay, and she found as time went on that she was not only learning a foreign tongue, and learning it thoroughly, but she was also learning to speak her own language more correctly. This pleased her enormously, for, like all true Scots, she had the desire to better herself firmly planted in her breast.

The weeks slipped past with remarkable rapidity. She took over the marketing for Aunt Bella and found it an interesting business. She visited Covent Garden in the early morning and returned laden with fruit and vegetables and flowers. She helped with the linen, added up accounts, and made herself generally useful. During the summer months, the hotel was full of visitors, but in spite of the work that this entailed, Sue and Aunt Bella went to the theater regularly twice a week. Miss Bulloch loved the theater; it was her chief recreation (and Sue was an excellent excuse for going more often than usual). She laughed and cried and lived so intensely through the vicissitudes of the hero and heroine that she was like a rag when the play was over.

“It's grand!” she would say, leaning heavily on Sue's arm as they sought their homeward-bound bus. “It's just grand. Oh my, I do love a good play! How anybody in their sane senses can go to the cinema when they could see a good play is more than I can understand.”

Aunt Bella scorned the screen.

All this time there was no word from Darnay, and Mr. Hedley's advertisements in the foreign press brought no reply. Sue visited the galleries several times and was received with so much cordiality that she was quite surprised, and she formed the opinion that Mr. Hedley and his staff had very nice manners indeed.

“It isn't as if I had ever bought anything from them,” she declared to Aunt Bella in some perplexity. “You could understand it then. I've never bought anything at all, and I always tell them that I'm not going to buy anything, but they don't seem to mind.”

Aunt Bella laughed. “It's business, Sue, just business, that's all. They're always hoping!”

* * *

One morning Sue returned from her marketing to find Aunt Bella closeted in her office with a young man. Sue had opened the door and was about to retire hurriedly when the visitor looked around and laughed.

“Sue!” he cried. “Don't you know me?”

“Sandy!” exclaimed Sue in amazement.

“Yes, it's me,” declared Sandy, leaping from his chair and enveloping his sister in a bear's hug. “It's your very own little brother—six feet one in his stocking soles—what have you got to say to him, eh?”

“Oh, Sandy,” cried Sue. “You've grown. Why, you're enormous, and how well you look!”

“He's a fine man,” declared Aunt Bella, smiling at them both. “A fine, well-setup fellow, and that's the truth.”

“I'm through my training now,” said Sandy, sitting down on the sofa and pulling Sue down beside him. “I've been telling Aunt Bella all my news. I'm going to India with a draft, and that's why I've got leave. I came straight here to see you, and then I'm going home.”

Sue looked up into his face, and he met her eyes squarely.

“I've got to see Father,” he said, flushing a little beneath his tan. “I want to make everything right before I go away.”

“Oh, I'm glad!” she said in a low voice.

He squeezed her hand. “It will be all right,” he told her. “I'm not afraid of him now.”

“Maybe he'll be afraid of you,” suggested Aunt Bella grimly, with a glance at her nephew's inches.

Sue and Sandy laughed. They could not imagine Will Pringle being afraid of anybody.

“You may laugh,” Miss Bulloch said. “The fact is, I never could thole your father—a grim growdie, that's what he is. Maybe I shouldn't say it to you,” she added complacently, “but I'm in the habit of saying what I think, and Sue knows it.”

Neither of Will's children was inclined to take up the cudgels on his behalf. They looked at each other and smiled.

“What Mary was thinking of beats me,” continued Aunt Bella. “She could have had her pick. She was like a fairy, the creature, and the men were all mad for her, so what on earth induced her… But maybe I'd best hold my tongue; it's a wee bit apt to run away with me. You'll stay here, Sandy,” she added, with another admiring glance at her nephew. “Aye, there's a wee room at the top near Sue. Stay on for a few days anyway, and we'll go to the theater.”

The few days lengthened into a week and passed very quickly, for Sue and Sandy had much to talk about. Sue heard the whole story of the air rifle for the first time and listened to it sympathetically.

“I don't know what was the matter with me,” Sandy said at last. “I was under a kind of spell or something. The fact is, when I look back and think over what I did it seems as if it was somebody else's life I was looking at, and not my life at all. Yet, it's only six months since it happened. I can't believe it, Sue.”

“You've changed,” she told him.

“You've changed too,” he replied, looking at her with critical eyes. “I don't know what it is about you, but you seem to be more of a person. You're not so prickly now,” he added, laughing.

Sue smiled. “I was rather a hedgehog,” she admitted. “I thought everybody was trying to ‘do me down,' and I had to fight to keep my end up, but now I've discovered that people are awfully kind if you take them the right way.”

“Aunt Bella's a gem,” said Sandy.

Sue nodded. Aunt Bella was a gem, but it was not only Aunt Bella who was kind—everybody was. In fact, the world was a delightful place. There was only one flaw in it, and that was the disappearance of Darnay.

Sandy was such good company that Aunt Bella was very loath to part from him when the day arrived.

“You'll come back and see us,” she told him as she stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

“I will indeed,” he replied. “I'll be back as quick as I can. You've been so good to me, Aunt Bella. Maybe you'll see me back sooner than you expect if Father kicks me out of the door.”

Aunt Bella wagged her finger at him seriously. “Don't you let him put upon you,” she said. “He's a bully, is Will, and the thing to do is to stand up to him. He was polite and pleasant to me once I had showed him my mettle.”

Sandy went off in a calm and confident mood. He intended to walk into his father's shop unexpectedly, to ask forgiveness for his misdeed, and to pay back the pound that he had taken from the till. What happened next would depend upon his father's attitude, and Sandy could not imagine what his father would do. He could not envisage a scene of reconciliation with Will—it was out of keeping with his character—but the truth was, Sandy did not greatly care what happened. He would have done what he could to make amends, and that was all that mattered.

He traveled north by night and timed himself to arrive at the bakery during the dinner hour, for he was aware that this was his best chance of seeing his father alone. How queer it was to walk through the streets that he knew so well feeling like a stranger! He saw several people he knew, but they hurried past him without a glance, for Sandy had grown so tall and looked so much older that they did not recognize him. Mr. Hogg was standing at the door of his shop and Sandy passed without a sign. He intended to visit Mr. Hogg later and pay what was due, but he wanted to see his father first, and he was impatient to get the interview over.

He reached the bakery at half past twelve exactly and stood looking at it for a few minutes before going in. He had spent all his life here, but the place seemed unfamiliar to him. It looked small and somewhat insignificant, but perhaps that was because he had seen so much and grown larger himself in mind as well as body. Although it was only six months since he had left, running away in fear of his life with the stolen money in his pocket, Sandy felt like Rip van Winkle.

Presently he drew near and peered in through the shining plate-glass windows, and—seeing that his father was alone in the shop—he pushed open the door and went in.

“Sandy!” exclaimed Will in amazement.

“Yes, it's me,” said Sandy. “I'm in the army, Father, and I'm going abroad. I wanted to see you before I went and pay you back.”

He put the pound note on the counter as he spoke. He had not asked forgiveness, because, now that he was back in the old atmosphere, he knew that it was impossible to say the words.

“Well, ye've grown a lot,” remarked Will.

“I'm six feet one.”