"I'll go down to the business with father's message. He asked me to go in the forenoon," she said, after a moment's indecision, addressing her mother's bowed, rapt figure.
Mrs. Brodie, sitting in the drawing room of a Sussex manor, surrounded by the society of her election, and in earnest conversation with the evangelical vicar of the parish, did not reply, did not even hear her daughter's voice. When immersed in a book she was, as her husband had put it, its slave.
"You're a perfect slave to that trash," he had once sneered at her, when she had failed to respond to his question. "To see ye slaverin' ower it is like a drunkard wi' a bottle. Ye wad sit readin' there if the house was burnin' about our ears."
Observing, therefore, with a clouded eye that it was useless to disturb her mother, that under the present circumstances she could not obtain from her a coherent, still less a comforting word, Mary departed silently and unnoticed, to execute her errand.
On the way to the town she remained immersed in her sad, questioning thoughts, walking limply, her head drooping, with slow steps; but although her journey was thus protracted, she reached her destination before she had even glimpsed the solution of her enigma.
In the shop Peter Perry was alone, lively, expanded, important, in the magnificence of sole responsibility, and he welcomed her with nervous effusion, his face lighting up with delight and his white cheeks becoming even more pale from the joyous shock of seeing her.
"This is an unexpected pleasure indeed, Miss Mary. Not often we have the pleasure of seeing you down at the business! Dear me! A great pleasure! A great pleasure!" he repeated agitatedly, rubbing his thin, transparent, tapering fingers together with quick, rustling movements; then he paused, completely at a loss. He was actually unnerved by the stroke of circumstances which had delivered Mary at the shop on the very day when, her father being absent, he might be permitted to talk to her, and, in his confusion, the scintillating con-
versations he had so frequently conducted in his imagination between himself and a bevy of queenly young ladies of the highest society, and which he regarded as a form of rehearsal for an occasion such as that which now presented itself, fled from him on the four winds. He was silent, he who had longed for this opportune moment, saying, "If a fellow could get the chance he might cut a pretty good dash with Miss Mary"; and tongue-tied, he who addressed his ironing board, through the steam in the back shop, with fluent, contemptuous ease.
A paralysing dumbness lay upon the man who, in his romantic leisure moments in bed on Sunday mornings, his eye fixed on his brass bed knob as on a coronet, had charmed a duchess with his courtly speech. He felt his flesh wilt, his skin tingle damply, the perspiration exude clammily from his pores; he lost his head completely and, his professional manner taking the bit between its teeth, he blurted out, "Pray be seated, Madam; what can I do for you to-day?"
He was horrified and what blood lay in his veins rushed painfully to his head, making her image swim before him through a haze of embarrassment. He did not colour that was an impossibility for him but his head swam with giddiness; yet to his amazement and relief, Mary manifested neither indignation nor surprise. In plain truth, her thoughts were still sadly distant, she had not quite recollected herself from the march of her dreary reverie, had not heard him, and instead of showing astonishment, she took quite gratefully the chair he had automatically proffered and sank down upon it with a tired sigh.
Then in a moment she looked up, as though seeing him for the first time.
"Oh! Mr. Perry," she exclaimed, "I I must have been thinking, I had no idea you were there."
He was slightly dismayed. Looking at his emasculate figure, it seemed the last possibility in the world that he should cherish, in the traditional manner, a secret passion for his employer's daughter, but such was indeed the case, and, in his highest, wildest and most furtive flights, he visualised even a partnership for an exceedingly worthy young man, to be achieved through an alliance to the house of Brodie, more binding than that of sordid trade. Mary, completely unaware of such optimistic visions, but vaguely pitying in her heart the timorous youth who lived in such manifest apprehension of her father, gazed at him mildly.
"I have a message for you, Mr. Perry," she said. "Mr. Brodie will not be in to-day and asks that you will attend to the business in his absence."
"Oh! Quite, Miss Brodie! I quite understand that your father would be at the Show to-day. In fact, I have made all arrangements to be here all day! I shall lunch here. I know well that the chief is extremely fond of such functions." Had Brodie heard himself referred to in such terms he would have annihilated his assistant with a single glance, but Perry had now recovered himself, was prepared to do himself justice, and privately considered his last florid remark rather good. "But even in the chief's absence the work will go on, Miss Brodie, and I hope go on well," he continued euphoniously. "You, personally, may rest assured I shall do my best, my very utmost to make things go smoothly." He was so earnest in his manner, his moist eye glistened so eloquently that, despite her apathy, Mary found herself thanking him, though for what reason she scarcely
knew.
Just then a customer came in, a shipwright who demanded a new cap and, though Mary would have gone at his entry, a languor of mind held her passive and relaxed, a lassitude of body bound her to the soothing comfort of the chair. She felt disinclined to begin her return home, and under her eye, although it followed his movements indifferently, Perry, seizing a delightful chance to exhibit his ability, served his client in his best style, accomplishing feats of extreme nimbleness and dexterity with boxes and the short step-ladder, and eventually with paper and string. When the purchaser had gone, he returned with a conscious air and, leaning across the counter, remarked confidentially, "Your father has a wonderful business here, Miss Brodie practically a monopoly.' rie was proud of that word too, and although it came out of a book on Economics he was wrestling with at nights, he gave the term the flavour of his own deep and
original deduction. "Not that if I might venture to suggest it it might not be increased by a few new ideas, a little novelty, perhaps, some new developments, even an extension of the business it could be done," he added insinuatingly.
She did not reply, which oppressed him with the feeling that somehow he did not seem to be holding her attention; the conversation appeared to him rather one-sided.
"I hope you are well?" he enquired, after a considerable pause.
"Quite well," she echoed mechanically.
"You look to me, if I may say so, somewhat thinner in the face."
She raised her eyes.
"You think I'm thinner."
"Decidedly!" He seized the opportunity to regard her impassive, shadowed face with an expression of respectful solicitude and, as he leaned upon the counter, supported his small chin in his long fingers and posed his figure generally with an air of studied admiration.
"In fact," he continued boldly, '"although as beautiful as ever, if you will permit me to say so, you look slightly indisposed. I am afraid the heat of the day is trying you. Could I get you a glass of water?"
Before she could refuse he had raised himself in a passion of service, was off like a shot, returned instantly with a brimming tumbler of sparkling water and had pressed the cold, clouded glass into her unresistant hand. "Drink it, Miss Mary," he insisted, "it will do you good." As she took a few sips so as not to hurt his feelings, a sudden anxious thought filled him with concern.
"I trust you have not been ill. You are so pale. Have you seen your physician?" he enquired in his best manner.