The Laurel Bush Part 3

Easily--oh, how easily!--could Fortune have answered this--have told him that, whether he wished it or not, two did really bear his burdens, and perhaps the one who bore it secretly and silently had not the lightest share. But she did not speak: it was not possible.

"How shall I hear of you Miss Williams?" he said, after a long silence.

"You are not likely to leave the Dalziel family?"

"No," she answered; "and if I did, I could always be heard of, the Dalziels are so well known hereabouts. Still, a poor wandering governess easily drops out of people's memory."

"And a poor wandering tutor too. But I am not a tutor any more, and I hope I shall not be poor long. Friends can not lose one another; such friends as you and I have been. I will take care we shall not do it, that is, if--but never mind that. You have been very good to me, and I have often bothered you very much, I fear. You will be almost glad to get rid of me."

She might have turned upon him eyes swimming with tears--woman's tears--that engine of power which they say no man can ever resist; but I think, if so, a woman like Fortune would have scorned to use it. Those poor weary eyes, which could weep oceans alone under the stars, were perfectly dry now--dry and fastened on the ground, as she replied, in a grave steady voice,

"You do not believe that, else you would never have said it."

Her composure must have surprised him, for he looked suddenly up, then begged her pardon. "I did not hurt you, surely? We must not part with the least shadow of unkindness between us."

"No." She offered her hand, and he took it--gently, affectionately, but only affectionately. The one step beyond affection, which leads into another world, another life, he seemed determined not to pa.s.s.

For at least half an hour he sat there with David on his knee, or rising up restlessly to pace the room with David on his shoulder; but apparently not desiring the child's absence, rather wis.h.i.+ng to keep him as a sort of barrier. Against what?--himself? And so minute after minute slipped by; and Miss Williams, sitting in her place by the window, already saw, dotting the Links, group after group of the afternoon church-goers wandering quietly home--so quietly, so happily, fathers and mothers and children, companions and friends--for whom was no parting and no pain.

Mr. Roy suddenly took out his watch. "I must go now; I see I have spent all but my last five minutes. Good-by, David, my lad; you'll be a big man, maybe, when I see you again. Miss Williams" (standing before her with an expression on his face such as she had never seen before), "before I go there was a question I had determined to ask you--a purely ethical question which a friend of mine has been putting to me, and I could not answer; that is, I could from the man's side, the worldly side.

A woman might think differently."

"What is it?"

"Simply this. If a man has not a half-penny, ought he to ask a woman to share it? Rather an Irish way of putting the matter," with a laugh, not without bitterness, "but you understand. Ought he not to wait till he has at least something to offer besides himself: Is it not mean, selfish, cowardly, to bind a woman to all the chances or mischances of his lot, instead of fighting it out alone like a man: My friend thinks so, and I--I agree with him."

"Then why did you ask me."

The words, though low and clear, were cold and sharp--sharp with almost unbearable pain. Every atom of pride in her was roused. Whether he loved her and would not tell her so, or loved some other woman and wished her know it, it was all the same. He was evidently determined to go away free and leave her free; and perhaps many sensible men or women would say he was right in so doing.

"I beg your pardon," he said, almost humbly. "I ought not to have spoken of this at all. I ought just to have said 'Good-by,' and nothing more."

And he took her hand.

There was on it one ring, not very valuable, but she always liked to wear it, as it had belonged to her mother. Robert Roy drew it off, and put it deliberately into his pocket.

"Give me this; you shall have it back again when I am dead, or you are married, whichever happens first. Do you understand?"

Putting David aside (indeed, he seemed for the first time to forget the boy's presence), he took her by the two hands and looked down into her face. Apparently he read something there, something which startled him, almost shocked him.

Irresolute, alas! Too late; for just then all the three Dalziel boys rushed into the house and the school-room, followed by their grandmother.

The old lady looked a good deal surprised, perhaps a little displeased, fro on to the other.

Mr. Roy perceived it, and recovered himself in an instant, letting go Fortune's hands and placing himself in front of her, between her and Mrs.

Dalziel. Long afterward she remembered that trivial act--remembered it with the tender grat.i.tude of the protected toward the protector, if nothing more.

"You see, I came, as I told you I should, if possible, to bid Miss Williams good-by, and wee Davie. They both kindly admitted me, and we have had half an hour's merry chat, have we not Davie? Now, my man, good-by." He took up the little fellow and kissed him, and then extended his hand. "Good-by, Miss Williams. I hope your little pupils will value you as you deserve."

Then, with a courteous and formal farewell to the old lady, and a most uproarious one from the boys, he went to the door, but turned round, saying to the eldest boy, distinctly and clearly--though she was at the farther end of the room, she heard, and was sure he meant her to hear every word:

"By-the-by, Archy, there is something I was about to explain to Miss Williams. Tell her I will write it. She is quite sure to have a letter from me tomorrow--no, on Tuesday morning."

And so he went away, bravely and cheerily, the boys accompanying him to the gate, and shouting and waving their hats to him as he crossed the Links, until their grandmother reprovingly suggested that it was Sunday.

"But Mr. Roy does not go off to India every Sunday. Hurrah! I wish we were all going too. Three cheers for Mr. Roy." "Mr. Roy is a very fine fellow, and I hope he will do well," said Mrs. Dalziel, touched by their enthusiasm; also by some old memories, for, like many St. Andrews folk, she was strongly linked with India, and had sent off one-half of her numerous family to live or die there. There was something like a tear in her old eyes, though not for the young tutor; but it effectually kept her from either looking at or thinking of the governess. And she forgot them both immediately. They were merely the tutor and the governess.

As for the boys, they chattered vehemently all tea-time about Mr. Roy, and their envy of the "jolly" life he was going to; then their minds turned to their own affairs, and there was silence.

The kind of silence, most of us know it, when any one belonging to a household, or very familiar there, goes away on a long indefinite absence. At first there is little consciousness of absence at all; we are so constantly expecting the door to be opened for the customary presence that we scarcely even miss the known voice, or face, or hand.

By-and-by, however, we do miss it, and there comes a general, loud, shallow lamentation which soon cures itself, and implies an easy and comfortable forgetfulness before long. Except with some, or possibly only one, who is, most likely the one who has never been heard to utter a word of regret, or seen to shed a single tear.

Miss Williams, now left sole mistress in the school room, gave her lessons as usual there that Monday morning, and walked with all four boys on the Links all afternoon. It was a very bright day, as beautiful as Sunday had been, and they communicated to her the interesting facts, learned at golfing that morning, that Mr. Roy and his portmanteau had been seen at Leuchars on the way to Burntisland, and he would likely have a good crossing, as the sea was very calm. There had lately been some equinoctial gales, which had interested the boys amazingly, and they calculated with ingenious pertinacity whether such gales were likely to occur again when Mr. Roy was in the Bay of Biscay, and, if his s.h.i.+p were wrecked, what he would be supposed to do. They were quite sure that he would conduct himself with great heroism, perhaps escape on a single plank, or a raft made by his own hands, and they consulted Miss Williams, who of course was peripatetic cyclopedia of all scholastic information, as to which port in France of Spain he was likely to be drifted to, supposing this exciting event did happen.

She answered their questions with her usual ready kindliness. She felt like a person in a dream, yet a not unhappy dream, for she still heard the voice, still felt the clasp of the strong, tender, sustaining hands.

And tomorrow would be Tuesday.

Tuesday was a wet morning. The bright days were done. Soon after dawn Fortune had woke up and watched the sunrise, till a chill fog crept over the sea and blotted it out; then gradually blotted out the land also, the Links, the town, every thing. A regular St. Andrews "haar;" and St.

Andrews people know what that is. Miss Williams had seen it once or twice before, but never so bad as this--blighting, penetrating, and so dense that you could hardly see your hand before you.

But Fortune scarcely felt it. She said to herself, "Today is Tuesday,"

which meant nothing to any one else, every thing to her. For she knew the absolute faithfulness, the careful accuracy, in great things and small, with which she had to do. If Robert Roy said, "I will write on such a day," he was as sure to write as that the day would dawn; that is, so far as his own will went; and will, not circ.u.mstance, is the strongest agent in this world.

Therefore she waited quietly for the postman's horn. It sounded at last.

"I'll go," cried Archy. "Just look at the haar! I shall have to grope my way to the gate."

He came back, after what seemed an almost endless time, rubbing his head and declaring he had nearly blinded himself by running right into the laurel bush.

"I couldn't see for the fog. I only hope I've left none of the letters behind. No, no; all right. Such a lot! It's the Indian mail. There's for you, and you, boys." He dealt them out with a merry, careless hand.

There was no letter for Miss Williams--a circ.u.mstance so usual that n.o.body noticed it or her, as she sat silent in her corner, while the children read noisily and gaily the letters from their far-away parents.

_Her_ letter--what had befallen it? Had he forgotten to write? But Robert Roy never forgot any thing. Nor did he delay any thing that he could possibly do at the time he promised. He was one of the very few people in this world who in small things as in great are absolutely reliable. It seemed so impossible to believe he had not written, when he said he would, that as a last hope, she stole out with a plaid over her head and crept through the sidewalks of the garden, almost groping her way through the fog, and, like Archy, stumbling over the low boughs of the laurel bush to the letter-box it held. Her trembling hands felt in every corner, but no letter was there.

She went wearily back; weary at heart, but patient still. A love like hers, self-existent and sufficient to itself, is very patient, quite unlike the other and more common form of the pa.s.sion; not love, but a diseased craving to be loved, which causes a thousand imaginary miseries and wrongs. Sharp was her pain, poor girl; but she was not angry, and after her first stab of disappointment her courage rose. All was well with him; he had been seen cheerily starting for Edinburgh; and her own temporary suffering was a comparatively a small thing. It could not last: the letter would come tomorrow.

But it did not, nor the next day, nor the next. On the fourth day her heart felt like to break.

I think, of all pains not mortal, few are worse than this small silent agony of waiting for the post; letting all the day's hope climax upon a single minute, which pa.s.ses by, and the hope with it, and then comes another day of dumb endurance, if not despair. This even with ordinary letters upon which any thing of moment depends. With others, such as this letter of Robert Roy's--let us not speak of it. Some may imagine, others may have known, a similar suspense. They will understand why, long years afterward, Fortune Williams was heard to say, with a quiver of the lip that could have told its bitter tale, "No; when I have a letter to write, I never put off writing it for single day."

As these days wore on--these cruel days, never remembered without a s.h.i.+ver of pain, and of wonder that she could have lived through them at all--the whole fabric of reasons, arguments, excuses, that she had built up, for him and herself, gradually crumbled away. Had she altogether misapprehended the purport of his promised letter? Was it just some ordinary note, about her boys and their studies perhaps, which, after all, he had not thought it worthwhile to write? Yet surely it was worth while, if only to send a kindly and courteous farewell to a friend, after so close an intimacy and in face of so indefinite a separation.

A friend? Only a friend? Words may deceive, eyes seldom can. And there had been love in his eyes. Not mere liking, but actual love. She had seen it, felt it, with that almost unerring instinct that women have, whether they return the love or not. In the latter case, they seldom doubt it; in the former, they often do.

"Could I have been mistaken?" she thought, with a burning pang of shame.

"Oh, why did he not speak--just one word? After that, I could have borne any thing."

But he had not spoken, had not written. He had let himself drop out of her life as completely as a falling star drops out of the sky, a s.h.i.+p sinks down in mid-ocean, or--any other poetical simile, used under such circ.u.mstances by romantic people.

Fortune Williams was not romantic; at least, what romance was in her lay deep down, and came out in act rather than word. She neither wept nor raved nor cultivated any external signs of a breaking heart. A little paler she grew, a little quieter, but n.o.body observed this: indeed, it came to be one of her deepest causes of thankfulness that there was n.o.body to observe any thing--that she had no living soul belonging to her, neither father, mother, brother, nor sister, to pity her or to blame him; since to think him either blamable or blamed would have been the sharpest torture she could have known.