The Laurel Bush Part 11

"Well, I don't exactly say that. I know I'm not half good enough for her. Still, I thought, when I had taken my degree and fairly settled myself at the bar, I'd try. I have a tolerably good income of my own too, though of course I am not as well off as that confounded Roy. There he is at this minute meandering up and down the West Sands with those two girls, setting every body's tongue going! I can't stand it. I declare to you I won't stand it another day."

"Stop a moment," and she caught hold of David as he started up. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know and I don't care, only I won't have my girl talked about--my pretty, merry, innocent girl. He ought to know better, a shrewd old fellow like him. It is silly, selfish, mean."

This was more than Miss Williams could bear. She stood up, pale to the lips, but speaking strongly, almost fiercely:

"You ought to know better, David Dalziel. You ought to know that Mr. Roy had not an atom of selfishness or meanness in him--that he would be the last man in the world to compromise any girl. If he chooses to marry Janetta, or any one else, he has a perfect right to do it, and I for one will not try to hinder him."

"Then you will not stand by me any more?"

"Not if you are blind and unfair. You may die of love, though I don't think you will; people don't do it nowadays" (there was a slightly bitter jar in the voice): "but love ought to make you all the more honorable, clear-sighted, and just. And as to Mr. Roy--"

She might have talked to the winds, for David was not listening. He had heard the click of the garden gate, and turned round with blazing eyes.

"There he is again! I can't stand it, Miss Williams. I give you fair warning I can't stand it. He has walked home with them, and is waiting about at the laurel bush, mooning after them. Oh, hang him!"

Before she had time to speak the young man was gone. But she had no fear of any very tragic consequences when she saw the whole party standing together--David talking to Janetta, Mr. Roy to Helen, who looked so fresh, so young, so pretty, almost as pretty as Janetta. Nor did Mr.

Roy, pleased and animated, look so very old.

That strange clear-sightedness, that absolute justice, of which Fortune had just spoken, were qualities she herself possessed to a remarkable, almost a painful, degree. She could not deceive herself, even if she tried. The more cruel the sight, the clearer she saw it; even as now she perceived a certain naturalness in the fact that a middle-aged man so often chooses a young girl in preference to those of his own generation, for she brings him that which he has not; she reminds him of what he used to have; she is to him like the freshness of spring, the warmth of summer, in his cheerless autumn days. Sometimes these marriages are not unhappy--far from it; and Robert Roy might ere long make such a marriage.

Despite poor David's jealous contempt, he was neither old nor ugly, and then he was rich.

The thing, either as regarded Helen, or some other girl of Helen's standing, appeared more than possible--probable; and if so, what then?

Fortune looked out once, and saw that the little group at the laurel bush were still talking; then she slipped up stairs into her own room and bolted the door.

The first thing that she did was to go straight up and look at her own face in the gla.s.s--her poor old face, which had never been beautiful, which she had never wished beautiful, except that it might be pleasant in one man's eyes. Sweet it was still, but the sweetness lay in its expression, pure and placid, and innocent as a young girl's. But she saw not that; she saw only its lost youth, its faded bloom. She covered it over with both her hands, as if she would fain bury it out of sight; knelt down by her bedside, and prayed.

"Mr. Roy is waiting below ma'am--has been waiting some time; but he says if you are busy he will not disturb you; he will come to-morrow instead."

"Tell him I shall be very glad to see him to-morrow."

She spoke through the locked door, too feeble to rise and open it; and then lying down on her bed and turning her face to the wall, from sheer exhaustion fell fast asleep.

People dream strangely sometimes. The dream she dreamt was so inexpressibly soothing and peaceful, so entirely out of keeping with the reality of things, that it almost seemed to have been what in ancient times would be called a vision.

First, she thought that she and Robert Roy were little children--mere girl and boy together, as they might have been from the few years'

difference in their ages--running hand in hand about the sands of St.

Andrews, and so fond of one another--so very fond! With that innocent love a big boy often has for a little girl, and a little girl returns with the tenderest fidelity. So she did; and she was so happy--they were both so happy. In the second part of the dream she was happy still, but somehow she knew she was dead--had been dead and in paradise for a long time, and was waiting for him to come there. He was coming now; she felt him coming, and held out her hands, but he took and clasped her in his arms; and she heard a voice saying those mysterious words: "In heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of G.o.d."

It was very strange, all was very strange, but it comforted her. She rose up, and in the twilight of the soft spring evening she washed her face and combed her hair, and went down, like King David after his child was dead, to "eat bread."

Her young people were not there. They had gone out again; she heard, with Mr. Dalziel, not Mr. Roy, who had sat reading in the parlor alone for upward of an hour. They were supposed to be golfing, but they staid out till long after it was possible to see b.a.l.l.s or holes; and Miss Williams was beginning to be a little uneasy, when they all three walked in, David and Janetta with a rather sheepish air, and Helen beaming all over with mysterious delight.

How the young man had managed it--to propose to two sisters at once, at any rate to make love to one sister while the other was by--remained among the wonderful feats which David Dalziel, who had not too small an opinion of himself, was always ready for, and generally succeeded in; and if he did wear his heart somewhat "on his sleeve," why, it was a very honest heart, and they must have been ill-natured "daws" indeed who took pleasure in "pecking at it."

"Wish me joy, Auntie!" he cried, coming forward, beaming all over, the instant the girls had disappeared to take their hats off. "I've been and gone and done it, and it's all right. I didn't intend it just yet, but he drove me to it, for which I'm rather obliged to him. He can't get her now. Janetta's mine!"

There was a boyish triumph in his air; in fact, his whole conduct was exceedingly juvenile, but so simple, frank, and sincere as to be quite irresistible.

I fear Miss Williams was a very weak-minded woman, or would be so considered by a great part of the world--the exceedingly wise and prudent and worldly-minded "world." Here were two young people, one twenty-two, the other eighteen, with--it could hardly be said "not a half-penny,"

but still a very small quant.i.ty of half-pennies, between them--and they had not only fallen in love, but engaged themselves to married! She ought to have been horrified, to have severely reproached them for their imprudence, used all her influence and, if needs be, her authority, to stop the whole thing; advising David not to bind himself to any girl till he was much older, and his prospects secured; and reasoning with Janetta on the extreme folly of a long engagement, and how very much better it would be for her to pause, and make some "good" marriage with a man of wealth and position, who could keep her comfortably.

All this, no doubt, was what a prudent and far-seeing mother or friend ought to have said and done. Miss Williams did no such thing, and said not a single word. She only kissed her "children"--Helen too, whose innocent delight was the prettiest thing to behold--then sat down and made tea for them all, as if nothing had happened.

But such events do not happen without making a slight stir in a family, especially such a quiet family as that at the cottage. Besides, the lovers were too childishly happy to be at all reticent over their felicity. Before David was turned away that night to the hotel which he and Mr. Roy both inhabited, every body in the house knew quite well that Mr. Dalziel and Miss Janetta were to be married.

And every body had of course suspected it long ago, and was not in the least surprised, so that the mistress of the household herself was half ashamed to confess how very much surprised _she_ had been. However, as every body seemed delighted, for most people have a "sneaking kindness"

toward young lovers, she kept her own counsel; smiled blandly over her old cook's half-pathetic congratulations to the young couple, who were "like the young bears, with all their troubles before them," and laughed at the sympathetic forebodings of the girls' faithful maid, a rather elderly person, who was supposed to have been once "disappointed," and who "hoped Mr. Dalziel was not too young to know his own mind." Still, in spite of all, the family were very much delighted, and not a little proud.

David walked in, master of the position now, directly after breakfast, and took the sisters out for a walk, both of them, declaring he was as much enc.u.mbered as if he were going to marry two young ladies at once, but bearing his lot with great equanimity. His love-making indeed was so extraordinarily open and undisguised that it did not much matter who was by. And Helen was of that sweet negative nature that seemed made for the express purpose of playing "gooseberry."

Directly they had departed, Mr. Roy came in.

He might have been a far less acute observer than he was not to detect at once that "something had happened" in the little family. Miss Williams kept him waiting several minutes, and when she did come in her manner was nervous and agitated. They spoke about the weather and one or two trivial things, but more than once Fortune felt him looking at her with that keen, kindly observation which had been sometimes, during all these weeks now running into months, of almost daily meeting, and of the closest intimacy--a very difficult thing to bear.

He was exceedingly kind to her always; there was no question of that.

Without making any show of it, he seemed always to know where she was and what she was doing. Nothing ever lessened his silent care of her.

If ever she wanted help, there he was to give it. And in all their excursions she had a quiet conviction that whoever forgot her or her comfort, he never would. But then it was his way. Some men have eyes and ears for only one woman, and that merely while they happen to be in love with her; whereas Robert Roy was courteous and considerate to every woman, even as he was kind to every weak or helpless creature that crossed his path.

Evidently he perceived that all was not right; and, though he said nothing, there was a tenderness in his manner which went to her heart.

"You are not looking well to-day; should you not go out?" he said. "I met all your young people walking off to the sands: they seemed extraordinarily happy."

Fortune was much perplexed. She did not like not to tell him the news--him, who had so completely established himself as a friend of the family. And yet to tell him was not exactly her place; besides, he might not care to hear. Old maid as she was, or thought herself, Miss Williams knew enough of men not to fall into the feminine error of fancying they feel as we do--that their world is our world, and their interest our interest. To most men, a leader in the _Times_, an article in the _Quarterly_, or a fall in the money market is of far more importance than any love affair in the world, unless it happens to be their own.

Why should I tell him? she thought, convinced that he noticed the anxiety in her eyes, the weariness at her heart. She had pa.s.sed an almost sleepless night, pondering over the affairs of these young people, who never thought of any thing beyond their own new-born happiness. And she had perplexed herself with wondering whether in consenting to this engagement she was really doing her duty by her girls, who had no one but her, and whom she was so tender of, for their dead father's sake. But what good was it to say any thing? She must bear her own burden. And yet--

Robert Roy looked at her with his kind, half-amused smile.

"You had better tell me all about it; for, indeed, I know already."

"What! did you guess it?"

"Perhaps. But Dalziel came to my room last night and poured out everything. He is a candid youth. Well, and am I to congratulate?"

Greatly relieved, Fortune looked up.

"That's right," he said; "I like to see you smile. A minute or two ago you seemed as if you had the cares of all the world on your shoulders.

No, that is not exactly the truth. Always meet the truth face to face, and don't be frightened by it."

Ah, no. If she had had that strong heart to lean on, that tender hand to help her through the world, she never would have been "frightened" at any thing.

"I know I am very foolish," she said; "but there are many things which these children of mine don't see, and I can't help seeing."

"Certainly; they are young, and we are--well, never mind. Sit down here, and let you and me talk the matter quietly over. On the whole, are you glad or sorry?"