True to a Type Volume I Part 5

"Difficult to imagine," came the answer from the thickest of a bank of smoke.

"I fear I am not a favourite with Mrs Naylor."

"She told you not to call any more, I believe? That was pretty plain."

"Was it not too bad of her? What can she have against me? She has known me ever since I came to the country, and she used to be like a mother to me."

"That was imprudent. Now she sees it, I suppose. A mother of girls may become mother-in-_law_ to some young fellow one day, and Mrs Naylor may feel that she ought to reserve herself for that. When girls leave school, you see, circ.u.mstances alter."

"I am sure I showed no unwillingness to take her for _my_ mother-in-law."

"That was the trouble. She could have taken you for a son--a full son, understand--and you might have been brother to the girls, if that would have pleased you. But it didn't."

"How could it? Would it have satisfied you--to take a nice girl to picnics, and hold her shawl while another fellow danced with her?"

"Put it that way, and it does seem hard. But what is a mother to do?

Her daughters' prospects ought to be her chief care."

"Do you think it is right to be mercenary, then? Is money to stand for everything? Is the fellow to count for nothing?"

"By no means! A good fellow it _must_ be--a nice fellow and a gentleman if possible, or the girl's life is spoiled. No amount of money could make her happy with a ruffian or a cad. But you must remember that Mrs Naylor's girls are young yet, and I cannot blame her for wis.h.i.+ng to look about before fixing their position for life."

"It is hard to be pa.s.sed over merely for being the first comer. And they may happen on worse subjects as well as better."

"Quite true. There is a proverb about a girl who was so particular about the stick she went to cut, that she came to the end of the wood before she could make up her mind, and then she had to content herself with a crooked one, or go without. However, proverbial philosophy goes for nothing, you know; people like to try for themselves. Still, there is excuse for a mother wis.h.i.+ng not to bury her accomplished daughter in the backwoods, as wife to a wild huntsman. One can understand that it would be pleasant for you, after being out all day with your gun and your dog, to find your dinner laid, and a pretty young wife beside a cosy fire waiting for you; but you cannot call it unreasonable if the lady's friends wish to secure her a less solitary home. When you are out, what will she have to amuse her but needle and thread? the chickens and the cows? You would not like to think of her sitting in the kitchen talking to the help; and yet you know they will be the only human creatures she will have to speak to when you are away."

"I told you I was selling out. She can choose her home anywhere between Gaspe and Vancouver."

"You would not like to live in a town, and a girl must have been bred on a farm to live happily on one afterwards."

"You leave the husband out of the calculation. Do you think she could be happy even in London or New York with a fellow she did not care for?"

"That is true; but she need not marry unless she cares."

"While even in the bush, if she liked the fellow, and he was fond of her, I think they might both be completely happy."

"I am with you there, my lad. Not a doubt of it,"--and he buried his hands deeper in his pockets, and bent his head forward to look at his boots, drawing a deep breath, and smoking harder than ever.

"Then why--Do you not think, Mr Naylor, you could bring your sister-in-law to see it in that light? You have always been a friend to me, since the first day I met you."

"Always your friend. Be sure of it. But I doubt my influence with Mrs Naylor; and, if I had any, I doubt if I ought to interfere. Girls cannot know their own minds till they have seen something of the world. They may mistake a pa.s.sing fancy for real regard; and if they have married in the meantime, there are two lives spoiled, instead of one just a little scorched--and that only for the moment, perhaps," he added, after a pause. Then pulling himself together,--"But what makes you talk like this to a crusty old bachelor? You cannot expect sympathy in your love-affairs from one who has resisted the illusions of sentiment as successfully as I have, surely?"

"I don't know. People are not bachelors and old maids for being harder than their neighbours, I suspect. I often fancy it is the other way.

But at least you are not against my trying, are you? You will not do anything to make my chances less than they are already?"

"No, Blount; I'll do nothing against you. I could almost wish the girl took a fancy to you, for I believe you are real; and if she does, I will do nothing to dissuade her. Money and position are not everything, by any means."

CHAPTER VII.

A TABLEAU.

Mrs Deane and her party returned early from their drive. The loungers on the galleries saw them alight. They also saw Naylor come hurriedly forward, uncovered beneath the penetrating glare of noon, which singled out the scattered hairs of white among the brown about his temples, and made them glitter in a way not grateful to the feelings of a well-preserved bachelor in middle life--if he had but known it.

Why can a man not stick fast at five-and-thirty?--at least till he marries? He is at his best then physically, though mentally--if he has a mind worth mentioning--he may go on improving for another decade, if not longer. There is so much in life, and in one's self, worth knowing, and which is not found out till after the time when the knowledge would have been most precious has slidden by. The soul grows slower than the body, and may only be coming into bloom when those weariful crow-feet are beginning to gather round the eyes. But girls cannot be expected to see all this. How should they, when youth in themselves is held the crown and perfume of all their charm?

Still Naylor pa.s.sed fairly well beneath the scrutiny of curious eyes--"the man who had been all but drowned that morning." He looked active, and even athletic, if somewhat gone to flesh. There was honesty in the steadfast grey eye, and modest self-possession in the fresh-coloured face. There was an earnestness, too, at the moment, which lent his bearing the dignity which is seldom attainable by the well-fed man of middle age and medium stature.

"Miss Hillyard," he said, "I have not had the happiness of being introduced to you; but surely, under the debt I owe you from this morning, you will allow me to offer you my grateful thanks."

"Mr Naylor," she answered, holding out her hand, "pray say nothing more about it. You have thanked me already, you know. But I am happy to make your acquaintance. I only did what any bather must have done who was near enough. I feel a little proud, I acknowledge, of my success, and pleased to have been of use; but do not talk of debts and grat.i.tude: it sounds oppressive."

"I cannot take it so easily as that, Miss Hillyard. If you had not laid hold on me as you did, I should have gone under. I felt myself sinking when you touched me. I should have been down before Sefton reached me--I am sure of that. You saved my life: it is an obligation which I never can repay."

Rosa flushed a little, and looked down. There were a good many pair of female eyes in the gallery turned upon her, as she felt, with interest, and just a suspicion of envy, which could not but be gratifying. Still, it was embarra.s.sing to stand out there on the gravel when the carriage had driven off, a cynosure for the eyes of all the people above; and just a trifle stagey, with this bareheaded gentleman presenting his acknowledgments with demonstrative respect.

Queen Elizabeth would have liked it; but then, she was a public character: and besides, we prefer nowadays to keep our theatricals and our private life apart. At the same time, it was pleasant to hear this earnest and respectful gentleman a.s.sure her that she had saved his life: he looked so manly and so strong. It made her think well of herself to have been able to help him; and his clear grey eyes looked so truthful and brave in their level gaze, that she wondered how their parts in the morning's episode should have been so strangely reversed, and felt how safe she would have been in his company had the accident happened to herself.

As for him, standing before her and looking in her face, it seemed as if the years must have rolled back upon themselves,--the long savourless years since his youth,--the years which had been so bitter when first he had pa.s.sed through his sore probation of sorrow; and then, when the lacerated spirit had learned to endure, had grown dull and insipid. He had felt himself alone, and that the joy of life was not for him; that others might love, but he must stand aside, an onlooker at the feast at which no place was laid for him. This new stirring in his benumbed emotions seemed like the summers he remembered long ago in the South, when the plants, made torpid by the arid heat, forget to grow, waiting through rainless weeks beneath a brazen sky. Then come the showers at last, and the roses put out buds and bloom anew, till winter comes to nip them.

He could not withdraw his eyes from the beautiful face before him. As he looked, it seemed transformed into another--another, yet still the same. This was more mature and strong; but that other might have been so too, if it had been given him to see it later. The soft brown eyes were the same, which lighted when she spoke, with the same blueness in the white, a lingering remainder from the freshness and purity of childhood. The hair was less dark than hers whom he remembered so well, and it had a crisper wave, which caught the falling sunbeams here and there, and flashed them brightly back like burnished bronze.

There was rich warm colour, too, in the cheek, while that other had been pale; but the difference accorded with the change of scene between the bracing airs of the North and the thick hot languor of Louisiana. This face had vigour and maturity; the other had been more tender and more frail. Its charm had lain in a drooping softness claiming support, and promises for the future as yet unfulfilled; while this was in the glory of all her beauty, sufficient for herself in her supple strength--a companion for manhood, as the other had been the clinging cherished one for youth.

The silence had now lasted for nearly a minute. Rosa became uneasily aware that she was contributing a tableau for the entertainment of her fellow-guests, which might be interpreted as "Love at first sight," or a modern and burlesque rendering of "Pharaoh's daughter and the infant Moses," according to their several humours. She looked up in her companion's face, with rising colour in her own, and the flicker of a smile about her lips, while she held out her hand.

"You are staying here, Mr Naylor, are you not?" she said. "We shall see each other again. I am pleased to know you. Now I must follow Mrs Deane," and she turned and went up the stairs.

Naylor awoke from his reverie, and found himself alone. He felt how few and bald had been his expressions of obligation; and he had come forward prepared to deliver himself so fully, and in such carefully chosen words, when the near view of her face had raised long-buried recollections, and confused him with a sense of doubleness in the presence before him, and left his memory blank. The tender girl he had been parted from long ago, seemed a.s.sociated and blended with the personality of this beautiful deliverer before him; and in an effort to disentangle the old impressions from the new, the precious moment for uttering his little speech had slipped away. Now he was alone, feeling how tongue-tied and thankless he must have appeared, and how impossible it would be to make another opportunity for delivering his speech.

And yet the speech might not be necessary now. She had received him very graciously, and had even said that she was pleased to know him--said it twice--and that they would meet again. "What more could he want?" he thought; "and was he not an a.s.s to fancy that any set phrases of his could give pleasure to so glorious a creature?--and shabby at heart, to think that any string of words could lessen the obligation under which he stood? He must never forget the debt, or dream that by word or act it could be lessened; rather, he must treasure the recollection, and watch and be ready, if haply he might, some day, be privileged to serve or succour in return."

So thinking, he turned on his heel and went his way, leaving the spectators in the gallery to find some other object to divert their leisure.

CHAPTER VIII.

MRS WILKIE'S POWDER.

Rose left Naylor standing on the gravel, and went into the house, making her way leisurely up to her room.

The parlour door stood ajar, disclosing only darkness within, to eyes coming straight from the outer glare of suns.h.i.+ne. It seemed cool in there, with the rustling sea-breeze sifting fitfully through the closed Venetians; and there were gurglings of smothered laughter, which told that the place was not deserted. She stepped within the gloom, and, as her eyes grew used to it, she became able to make out the tenants.

A cheerful crew of girls, standing and seated in a ring, occupied the centre of the floor. In their midst sat old Mrs Wilkie on a low ottoman, which she occupied by herself, like a kind of throne, fanning herself industriously till the short grey curls upon her temples danced and fluttered in the artificial gale. The new blue ribbons in her cap and the old blue eyes in her head danced in unison and elation, and a proud self-satisfied smile played about her lips, and deepened the creases in her cheeks, which looked round and rosy like an overkept winter apple. She was in her glory, and she gave yet a more energetic flap to the palm-leaf fan, as she pursed her lips together, and prepared to speak again.