No, but I can see for myself, cried Mrs Chute angrily. The idea of a boy of mine having no more pride than to be running after a stuck-up, dressy body like that, who looks at his poor mother as if she wasnt fit to be used to wipe her shoes on, and I dessey they aint paid for.
Mother, cried the young man, if you speak to me like that youll drive me mad!
And now he abuses his poor mother, who has been a slave to him all her life! cried the lady. Oh, Samoowel, Samoowel, when Im dead and cold and in my grave, these words of yoursll stand out like fires of reproach, and make you repent and There, if he hasnt gone after her, she cried furiously; for, finding that her son did not speak, she lowered the apron that she had thrown over her face, slowly and softly, till she found that she was alone, when she jumped up from the chair into which she had thrown herself, ran to the window, and was just in time to see Mr Samuel Chute walking quickly towards the town.
He dont have her if I can prevent it! cried Mrs Chute viciously, and the expression of her face was not pleasant just then.
But Samuel Chute neither heard
her words nor saw her looks, as a matter of course, for he was walking steadily after Hazel, wondering whither she was bound.
It was the last thing in the world that he would do watch her, but all the same he wanted to know where she went, and if it was for a walk, why he might turn up by accident just as she was coming back; and then, of course, he could walk with her, and somehow, now that he had so far been taken into her confidence in being trusted to change the school and club money for her, it would be easy to win another step in advance.
I lay twopence she walks out with me arm-in-arm before another months out, he said triumphantly; and mother must get over it best way she can.
All this while Hazel was some two hundred yards ahead, for the schoolmaster did not attempt to overtake her, but merely noted where she went, and followed.
Shes turned off by the low road, said Samuel Chute to himself. Shes going by old Burges. Well, that is the prettiest walk, and of course, I could go across by the footpath, and come out in the road this side of Burges, and meet her, and that would be better than seeming to have followed her.
Acting upon this idea, Samuel Chute struck out of the main street and went swiftly along a narrow lane, and then by the footpath over the meadows to the road, a walk of a good mile and a half before he was out into the winding road that led by Mr Burges.
Shell come upon me here, plump, he said with a laugh. I wonder what shell say, and whether shell look at me again in that pretty, shy way, same as she did when I took the school pence! Hah, things are going on right for you, my boy; and what could be better?
There was no answer to his question, so Samuel Chute went on making arrangements, like the Eastern man with his basket of crockery ware.
Ill tell you what well do; well put both the old ladies together in one house, while we live in the other. Nothing could be easier. I say, isnt it time she was here?
He glanced at his watch, and it certainly seemed to be time for Hazel to have reached as far. She was not long, however, in appearing now round the bend of the road, looking brighter and more attractive than Samuel Chute had seen her yet, for there was a warm flush in her cheek, and her eyes were sparkling and full of vivacity. But in spite of this the schoolmaster drew his breath through his teeth with a spiteful hiss, and as he leaned a little forward and stared at Hazel Thorne, his countenance assumed the same ugly look, full of dislike and spite, that had been seen in his mothers face only a short time before.
Chapter Sixteen. A Match-Making Mamma
Who Beatrice Lambent? said the young man, raising his eyes from his paper at breakfast.
Yes, dear; very thin and pale indeed.
Now you mention it yes, of course; but so she always did.
Slightly, George; and there was a delicacy in the tinting of her skin liliaceous, I might say, but she was not pale.
Bravo, dear! Thats a capital word. Do for a Tennysonian poem the Lay of the Liliaceous Lady.
I was speaking seriously, my dear, said Mrs Canninge stiffly. I beg that you will not make those absurd remarks.
Certainly not, dear; but liliaceous is not a serious way of speaking of a lady.
Then I will not use it, George, for I wish to speak to you very seriously about Beatrice Lambent.
The young man winced a little, but said nothing. He merely rustled his newspaper and assumed an air of attention.
I dont think that dear Beatrice is well, George.
Tell Lambent to send her off to the seaside for a good blow.
To pine away and grow worse, George.
To the interior, then, mother.
To still pine away, George.
Try homeopathy, then. Like cures like. Send her into Surrey amongst the fir-trees pine to cure pine.
Mrs Canninge sipped her coffee.
Or get Miss Penstemon to give her a few pilules out of one of her bottles the one she selected when I came down on the Czar last year at that big hedge.