Деяния Дорис, Агнес Жиберн

I. THE OWNER OF CLOVER COTTAGE

II. BAITING THE GROUND

III. DORIS REBELS

IV. THE MORRIS'S

V. A SECRET AGREEMENT

VI. DORIS LETS HERSELF GO

VII. THE CYCLE RIDE

VIII. MRS. BRUTT SUGGESTS

IX. SUDDEN SILENCE

X. A SURPRISE VISIT

XI. THE PORTRAIT

XII. A LITTLE PLOT

XIII. HAVE I DONE WRONG?

XIV. THE STRANGER

XV. R. R. MAURICE

XVI. THE CRY FROM THE CH;LET

XVII. A GREAT EFFORT

XVIII. ON THE MOUNTAIN

XIX. A ROTTEN PIECE OF ROCK

XX. ONLY A GIRL!

XXI. A SUPERB RESCUE

XXII. TWO HEARTS DRAWING NEARER

XXIII. ALMOST OVER

XXIV. "BUT I'M AFRAID"

XXV. THE SQUIRE'S ADVICE

XXVI. NOT HER HUSBAND

XXVII. THE EAVESDROPPER

XXVIII. WHAT MRS. BRUTT HEARD

XXIX. WHAT NEXT?

XXX. THE SQUIRE IS MYSTERIOUS

XXXI. THE SQUIRE'S DARK HOUR

XXXII. "YOU DON'T KNOW DICK"

XXXIII. "HOW WILL HE TAKE IT?"

XXXIV. FOILED!

XXXV. WOULD HAMILTON DO?

XXXVI. A SURPRISE MEETING

XXXVII. THE MISCHIEF-MAKER AGAIN

XXXVIII. "WHO WAS MY FATHER?"

XXXIX. "THAT WAS WELL DONE!"

 

 

 

THE DOINGS OF DORIS

 

CHAPTER I

The Owner of Clover Cottage

 

"A DELIGHTFUL man!" Mrs. Brutt declared. "Absolutely charming! Handsome—accomplished—clever—fascinating!" She hung impressively upon each adjective in turn. "Fortune has showered her gifts upon him. Has simply showered them."

Mrs. Brutt viewed her present companion as the reverse of charming. But to one who hated solitude, anybody was better than nobody; and she had seized a chance to inveigle him indoors, much against his will.

"Showered—gifts—" he repeated vaguely, his one thought being how to escape from durance vile.

"Ah, your masculine mind is occupied with weightier matters!" —and she rippled into laughter. She had a habit, not agreeable to all hearers, of interlarding her speech with ripples.

"I was speaking of the Squire. As I say—a most attractive character. So good of him to come and take tea with me in my humble cot! Overwhelmed as he must be with engagements! I assure you, I appreciate the compliment."

Mr. Winton's grunt might or might not have spelt acquiescence.

"And his niece—such an attractive woman! So distingu;e! That word does just exactly describe her. Not that I have seen so much of her as of her uncle." She had met Mr. Stirling three times, and Miss Stirling once. "But enough to realise what a perfectly unusual character hers is."

The Rector grunted anew. He never discussed one parishioner with another; and he hated gossip with a deadly hatred.

"So touching to see his devotion to her—really quite beautiful! I am told that she has been everything to him since his poor wife's death— ten years ago, wasn't it? A great sufferer she must have been—and such a sweet woman. Everybody says so. And now he just leans on his dear niece. So touching, isn't it?"

No reply. Grim silence.

"Then, too, there is Mr. Hamilton Stirling—a most interesting man. So full of information. Really, it is a privilege to come across a mind like his. Do tell me—is it true that he is the heir to all this property—supposing, of course, that the Squire never marries again?" She rippled anew. "First-cousin once removed, isn't he?"

"Yes," was the least that the Rector could say.

Mrs. Brutt understood that she would get nothing out of him, and she resented the fact. Her eyes surveyed with veiled criticism his ungainly figure, broad and heavy in make, thrown as a blur against a background of dainty colouring. He wore a rough workaday apron, suggestive of carpentering, over an ancient coat; both being, under supposition, never seen outside his shed. But when pressed for time, he would steal across for a word with his friend the carpenter; and more than once Mrs. Brutt had captured him en route in this unclerical guise. He had begun ruefully to see his own lost liberty, now that a talkative lady, with leisure for everybody's concerns, had chosen to plant herself within a stone's throw of the Rectory back-garden gate.

Hitherto the back lane had been little frequented, and he could do as he chose, with small fear of detection. Though Lynnbrooke had become a town, its growth had been mainly towards other points of the compass, leaving the old parish church and the original village almost untouched.

But Mrs. Brutt, coming for a week's change to the Inn, took a fancy to a couple of low-rented cottages, standing empty, and decided to make them her home. She had them transformed into a cosy dwelling, sent for her furniture, and settled down therein, with much flourish of trumpets.

For a while she was too busy to give heed to aught beyond the process of settling in. That ended, she found herself with superabundant time at her disposal, and during the last two months her presence had been in the Rector's eyes a standing grievance. He never could pass down the lane without a risk of being waylaid. Whatever else Mrs. Brutt might be doing, she seemed to have one eye permanently glued to her front window.

Capture on Monday afternoon was an aggravated offence. He counted Monday his own, free for the dear delights of his carpentering shed. So, though he came in because she insisted, he chafed under the necessity. Where she put him he remained, watching for the first chance to get away. Deep-set eyes under shaggy eyebrows rebelled; and the solid cogitative nose, broad at the tip with a dent in the middle, twitched impatiently. When she made a pause, he heaved himself to his feet, capsizing a fragile table.

"Sorry! I hope nothing is damaged." He picked it up gingerly. "I can't stay longer, I'm afraid. Sermon to write."

"Ah, were you going home to write your next Sunday's sermon?" The dulcet tones held a sting of unbelief, and naturally, since his face had been turned the other way. "You don't leave your choice of a subject till the last moment. So wise of you!"

A twinkle in the deep-set eyes showed appreciation of this. She stood up slowly.

"And your daughter, Mr. Winton,—the sweet Doris. Do tell me about her. We have not met for days. I am so interested in that dear girl. She is so unusual—so charming—so clever and bewitching!"

It was hardly in father-nature not to respond to this,—even though he did not believe that she meant what she said. He and she had been antagonistic from the moment of their first meeting. None the less, he paused in his retreat, that he might hear more.

"I assure you, she has quite taken hold of me. Quite fascinated me. Such a charming face—hers! I adore hazel eyes, and hers are true hazel—positive orbs of light." The Rector uttered a silent "Bosh!" to this. "Now that I am unpacked and arranged, I hope to see a great deal of that dear child. Tell her so, please, with my love. We are such near neighbours—" "Much too near!" silently commented the Rector— "that I hope she will be always in and out. Tell Doris—may I call her so?—that it will be a real charity, if she will come as often as possible to my little cot."

Why couldn't she say "cottage" like a sensible being? Mr. Winton hated being humbugged, and he abhorred gush. Praise of his Doris was sweet; but he could not quite swallow all this.

Mrs. Brutt studied through draped curtains his swinging stride down the little pathway.

"Of all uncouth beings! The contrast!" murmured she, setting alongside a mental picture of the Squire.

"And his wife. Not so uncouth, certainly, but really more unendurable. The girl's life, under such a regime, must be no joke. I wonder how she stands it, for my part."

Mrs. Brutt strolled round the room, which was crowded with furniture, with pictures, and with bric-a-brac ornaments, many of them old and valuable. She altered the position of one or two, thinking still about Doris Winton.

"A pretty girl," she murmured,—"and with pretty ways. She might make a sensation, away from this poky place. I wonder whether, some day, I could bring her forward. Not an impossible plan. What if I were to offer to take her abroad? I doubt if the Rector would approve. He likes me as little as I like him. But if I can get hold of the girl somehow—" She clapped her hands and laughed aloud. "I have it! I'll suggest the idea to the Squire. That will do. He simply rules the neighbourhood."

A ring at the front door took her by surprise. She glided to the window, just in time for a glimpse. Actually!—it was the Squire himself. Again—already! The impression she had made on him must have been agreeable. This flashed through her mind as she fled to the mantelpiece and anxiously surveyed herself. Although past forty, she knew that no grey lines had begun to appear in her well-dressed dark hair; and while she was a plain woman, so far as features were concerned, she also knew that her figure was good, and that she could carry herself with the air of being a somebody.

"Mr. Stirling" was announced. He found the lady engrossed in a book, which she put aside with a dreamy air, before beaming into a surprised welcome.

"This is a pleasure indeed. A most unexpected pleasure. How kind—how very kind! Pray sit down."

The Squire had called in passing, to leave a small volume on architecture which she had said she wished to read. He came in only to point out a passage bearing on the structure of the parish church; and he had not meant to stay. But protests proved useless. He, like the Rector, found that once inside Clover Cottage, it was not easy to get away.