Treasure Valley Part 22

As Gilbert walked by Rosalie's side his tumultuous joy gradually became mingled with other feelings. He wanted, more than anything else in the world, to get a word with her alone, and Blackburn was walking at her other side, with a maddening air of proprietors.h.i.+p. He was a genial, harmless sort of young man, but he was wealthy, and the sight of his prosperous complacency made the impecunious young doctor long to do him some bodily injury. And all the while Rosalie laughed and chatted as though every one in the world was as happy as herself. She went into fits of merriment over young Blackburn's facetious remarks, for, as they walked through the crowds, that gentleman was making presumably witty comments upon all he saw, from Piper Angus down, and Gilbert wondered drearily if even he, himself, thought he was saying anything funny.

"I say, Allen!" he cried, "you've got a fine collection for the zoo here. If Barnum had only lived to see this day! I--oh, I say! Look there!" He stood still, and gazed ahead of him in genuine admiration.

"Say, there's somebody that doesn't look as if she belonged to this menagerie. The Queen of Sheba, all right. Who is her royal highness?

Know her, Allen?"

Gilbert looked in the same direction, and became possessed of an unreasoning anger. Elsie Cameron was standing by her brother's side, under a spreading pine. Her trim, dark-green dress and hat, the soft rose-leaf tints of her face, and the rich bronze gold of her hair, made a picture so perfect that he might easily have excused the stranger's outburst. But he longed, more than ever, to knock him down.

"Yes," he answered shortly, "I know her."

"You do! Oh, come, now! You've simply got to introduce us. Hasn't he, Mrs. Windale? Do make him."

"I should like to meet the young lady," said Rosalie's aunt graciously.

"She is very beautiful. Don't you think so, Rose?"

"Oh, yes, I suppose so, rather," said Rosalie dryly. "But it's the piper I want to meet."

"Mrs. Windale and I will go up to the throne and present ourselves, if you don't, Allen," Blackburn cried.

"Dr. Allen," exclaimed Rosalie's sister, with laughing impatience, "do introduce us. Guy will rave about her all the way home, and bore us to death, if he doesn't get his own way."

Without a word, Gilbert led his party up to the pine knoll and presented them to his three friends.

He was conscious of a feeling of relief that they were such as could not possibly provoke the visitors' mirth. As he introduced Blackburn he was forcibly impressed by the sudden change in the young man's manner. His flippant gaiety vanished before Miss Cameron's stately candor, and he addressed her with the greatest deference.

Now was Gilbert's chance. He turned from the group for a word alone with Rosalie. She seemed quite eager for it herself. She had such heaps to tell him, she declared, that she never had time to put into a letter. She had had the most gorgeous summer at the seaside, and had been on two motoring tours since her return, and they were planning for the gayest winter. She chatted away, but with never a word for him; not a question as to his welfare or his work, and though she spoke to him alone, her eyes kept darting annoyed glances toward the two under the pines.

Gilbert's heart sank. "And where do I come in, Rosalie?" he asked pleadingly.

"You," she said, pouting, "you simply refuse to come in. Why don't you leave this dreadful place and come to the city? It must be like living in a graveyard to exist here."

"I have told you often that I can't yet, Rosalie," he said humbly.

"But you promised not to forget me in the meantime, don't you remember, dear?"

She turned away that he might not see her eyes, for her better self--the real woman that cared for him, and knew his true worth--was looking from them just then. And there was another Rosalie that cared, oh, so much, for wealth and social position.

"You know--I--I've told you," she said tremulously, "what I want you to do."

"I know, and I will settle in Toronto just as soon as I possibly can.

You have my promise. But I cannot come just now."

"When, then?"

"Perhaps at the beginning of the new year. If I----"

A frightened look came into her eyes, and she interrupted him.

"If you don't come at the beginning of the year it will be too late,"

she said breathlessly.

"Rosalie! What do you mean?"

"Hus.h.!.+ I--oh, I can't tell you," glancing apprehensively toward Blackburn. "We are going on through Elmbrook when we leave," she whispered hurriedly, "and you may drive me as far as the village, and we can talk over--things."

Gilbert felt a chill at his heart. Here, indeed, was the irony of fate.

"I--oh, I'm so sorry," he stammered, in blank dismay. "I've promised to drive some one else back." The confession was out before he thought.

"It's that Miss Cameron with the red hair!" cried Rosalie, with startling suddenness.

Gilbert's face grew hot. "Well, and what of that?" he asked reasonably.

Rosalie held her pretty head high. "Tell her you must take me," she said firmly.

"Rosalie!" cried Gilbert, "you couldn't ask me to do that. Miss Cameron is a lady, and she is proud, and----wait. Come for a little drive now. We can be back before the others are ready to leave."

"I will, if you promise me you will not drive her home afterward."

"Surely," he cried in dismay, "you wouldn't want me to be rude to her?"

Rosalie stood for a moment looking searchingly at him. He was changed.

He was not the boy who for three years had been ready to do her slightest bidding, no matter what the consequences. Just because she had condescended to become engaged to him he was a.s.suming airs of authority. Well, their engagement was a secret yet--she had insisted upon that--and she could soon find a way to frighten him into submission.

"It's the only favor I've asked of you for six months," she said coldly, "and if you do not want to grant it I shall never humiliate myself by asking another."

"Rosalie!" cried Gilbert desperately, "if you only understood----"

"I understand only too well," she flashed back. "Are you coming, or are you not?"

"I am very sorry," said Gilbert, politely but stubbornly, "but I cannot be rude to a lady even for your sake."

She turned her back upon him without another word, and walking straight up to Elsie Cameron, began to talk to her in the friendliest manner.

Gilbert stood watching her, puzzled and dismayed, and wondering desperately what he should do, when the attention of all was called by a singular proceeding on the race track.

An interesting display, the chief number on the program, had just closed--the exhibition of ladies' horsemans.h.i.+p, and, as usual, Ella Anne Long had carried off the palm. After the prizes were awarded it was the custom for the winners to drive around the ring several times, each lady bearing with her some highly-favored youth, somewhat as the conquering Romans attached their most distinguished captives to their triumphal car. While Miss Long, flushed with victory, was holding her horse till the judge fastened the ticket to his tossing head, Sawed-Off Wilmott stepped forward, feeling sure that the place of honor by Ella Anne's side would certainly be his. But just as he came sidling up, with a boyish step, a stalwart young farmer, one of the Highland Scotch giants from the Glenoro hills, elbowed his way up to the buggy. He had been casting admiring glances at Miss Long all afternoon, and now, without permission or apology, he sprang into the seat beside her.

"Thanks, awful much!" he cried jovially. Then in a lower tone, half humble, half daring, "You're going to take me around, ain't you?"

Miss Long cast him a disdainful side glance. "Well, you are a cool one!" she exclaimed haughtily. Nevertheless, she did not order him out, but touched her horse with the whip, and away they sped.

Poor Sawed-Off stood for an instant, glaring after them; then, at a laugh from the bystanders, he turned swiftly and leaped into his own conveyance. His horse was all ready to go on for the next exhibit, and a few of the men were already ambling around the ring in their two-wheeled vehicles. Mr. Wilmott gave his steed a cut with the whip and dashed fiercely into the ring after his faithless lady and her impudent Lochinvar. He would pa.s.s them, and humiliate her before the whole crowd. He came thundering down the track, his feet spread out, one on each side of his horse's flanks, his little two-wheeled sulky bobbing up and down over the rough road, his coat-tails flying, his whiskers parted by the breeze and streaming behind, and a forgotten bundle of hay, he had brought to feed his horse, sticking out rakishly from under his seat.

Sawed-Off was a caution of a driver, every one admitted, and in a few minutes he had all but overtaken the truant pair. Miss Long turned and took in the situation. She sat just a shade straighter, grasped her whip more firmly, and urged her horse to the utmost. Around and around the ring flew the runaways, and around and around behind them, gaining at every leap, bounced the sulky, the hay, and the angry pursuer.

They had just pa.s.sed the grand-stand for the second time, and the crowd was beginning to cheer, when a third compet.i.tor joined the swift procession. The eldest Sawyer orphan had been herding his third-prize cow in an ignominious corner, which properly belonged to the pigs and sheep; but growing weary of his task, he had given Davy Munn half a liquorice stick and three walnuts to whack [Transcriber's note: watch?]

Keturah just long enough to admit of his taking one ride on the merry-go-round. Davy had consented; but as the orphan had remained away long enough to ride through all the money Jake Sawyer had upon his person, Mr. Munn calmly left Keturah to her own devices and swaggered leisurely away. The cow wandered off, and making her way behind the pine grove, arrived at the race course just as the bundle of hay in Sawed-Off's sulky shot past. Whether Keturah saw a good meal disappearing, and wisely made after it, or whether the enraged shriek of her young master, who just then discovered her position, frightened the gentle animal into flight, no one will ever know. Whatever the cause, Keturah threw up her horns, her tail and her heels, and with her third-prize ticket dangling in view of the whole towns.h.i.+p, she scampered into the ring in the wake of Sawed-Off's flying coattails; while after her, mad with rage that she should have dared to advertise her shame, and shrieking most un-orphan-like anathemas, came her young keeper.

Now, poor Sawed-Off Wilmott, being only a maker of cheese, was naturally considered slightly beneath his farmer neighbors in the social scale. His employment had a touch of effeminacy about it, and gave a man the air of being merely an a.s.sistant to the cow. And now, at the sight of this animal pursuing him relentlessly, as though to claim him for her own, the whole of Elmbrook fair burst into a thunderous roar of laughter. Sawed-Off glanced back to see the cause, just as his horse's head pa.s.sed the front wheel of his lady's buggy.

With a start of chagrin he realized his ignominious position. To go around the track again in the face of that jeering crowd, with the cow close at his heels, was impossible. He pulled up sharply, jerked his horse aside, and drove off behind the sheds. Miss Long and Lochinvar made one more triumphant circuit, and disappeared in another direction.