April's Lady Part 28

"No, no. We must both be equal--both free, while I--" she stops short, coloring warmly, and laughing, "what is it I am to try to do?"

"To love me!" replies he, with infinite sadness in look and tone.

"Yes," says Joyce slowly, and then again meditatively, "yes." She lifts her eyes presently and regards him strangely. "And if all my trying should not succeed? If I never learn to love you?"

"Why, then it is all over. This hope of mine is at an end," say he, so calmly, yet with such deep melancholy, such sad foreboding, that her heart is touched.

"Oh! it is a hope of mine too," says she quickly. "If it were not would I listen to you to-day? But you must not be so downhearted; let the worst come to the worst, you will be as well off as you are at this instant."

He shakes his head.

"Does hope count for nothing, then?"

"You would compel me to love you," says she, growing the more vexed as she grows the more sorry for him. "Would you have me marry you even if I did not love you?" Her soft eyes have filled with tears, there is a suspicion of reproach in her voice.

"No. I suppose not."

He half turns away from her. At this moment a sense of despair falls on him. She will never care for him, never, never. This proposed probation is but a mournful farce, a sorry clinging to a hope that is built on sand. When in the future she marries, as so surely she will, he will not be her husband. Why not give in at once? Why fight with the impossible?

Why not break all links (frail as they are sweet), and let her go her way, and he his, while yet there is time? To falter is to court destruction.

Then all at once a pa.s.sionate reaction sets in. Joyce, looking at him, sees the light of battle, the warmth of love the unconquerable, spring into his eyes. No, he will not cave in! He will resist to the last!

dispute every inch of the ground, and if finally only defeat is to crown his efforts still----And why should defeat be his? Be it Beauclerk or another, whoever declares himself his rival shall find him a formidable enemy to overcome.

"Joyce," says he quickly, turning to her and grasping her hands, "give me my chance. Give me those twelve months; give me your thoughts now and then while they last. I brought you here to-day to say all this knowing we should be alone, and without----"

"Tommy?" says she, with a little laugh.

"Oh, well! You must confess I got rid of him," says he, smiling too, and glad in his heart to find her so cheerful. "I think if you look into it, that my stratagem, the inciting him to the overcoming of his sister in that race, was the work of a diplomatist of the first water. I quite felt that----"

A war whoop behind him dissolves his self-gratulations into nothing.

Here comes Tommy the valiant, triumphant, puffed beyond all description with pride and want of breath.

"I beat her, I beat her," shrieks he, with the last note left in his tuneful pipe. He staggers the last yard or two and falls into Joyce's arms, that are opened wide to receive him. Who shall say he is not a happy interlude? Evidently Joyce regards him as such.

"I came back to tell you," says Tommy, recovering himself a little. "I knew," with the fearless confidence of childhood, "that you'd be longing to know if I beat her, and I did. She's down there how with Bridgie,"

pointing to the valley beneath, "and she's mad with me because I didn't let her win."

"You ought to go back to her," says Dysart, "she'll be madder if you don't."

"She won't. She's picking daisies now."

"But Bridget will want you."

"No," shaking his lovely little head. "Bridgie said: 'ye may go, sir, an' ye needn't be in a hurry back, me an' Mickey Daily have a lot to say about me mother's daughter.'"

It would be impossible to describe the accuracy with which Tommy describes Bridget's tone and manner.

"Oh! I daresay," says Mr. Dysart. "Me mother's daughter must be a truly enthralling person."

"I think Tommy ought to be educated for the stage," says Joyce in a little whisper.

"He'll certainly make his mark wherever he goes," says Dysart, laughing.

"Tommy," after a careful examination of Monkton, Junior's, seraphic countenance, "don't you think you ought to take your sister on to the Court?"

"So I will," says Tommy, "in a minute or two." He has climbed into Joyce's lap, and is now sitting on her with his arms round her neck. To make love to a young woman and to induce her to marry you with a barnacle of this sort hanging round her suggests difficulties. Mr.

Dysart waits. "All things come to those who wait," says a wily old proverb. But Dysart proves this proverb a swindle.

"Now, Tommy," says he, "the two minutes are up."

"I don't care," says Tommy. "I'm tired, and Bridgie said I needn't hurry."

"The charms of Mr. Mickey Daly are no doubt great," says Dysart, mildly, "yet I think Bridget must by this time be aware that she wasn't sent out by your mother to tattle to him, but to take you and your sister to play with Bertie. Here, Tommy," decisively, "get off your aunt's lap and run away."

"But why?" demands Tommy, aggressively. "What harm am I doing?"

"You are tiring your aunt, for one thing."

"I'm not! She likes to have me here," defiantly. "I ride a 'c.o.c.k horse'

every night when she's at home, don't I, Joyce? I wish you'd go away,"

wrathfully, "because then Joyce would come home and play with us again.

'Tis you," glaring at him with deep-seated anger in his eyes, "who are keeping her here!"

"Oh, no; you are wrong there," says Dysart with a sad smile. "I could not keep her anywhere, she would not stay with me. But really, Tommy, you know you ought to go on to the Court. Poor little Bertie is looking out for you eagerly. See," plunging his hand into his pocket, "here is half a crown for you to spend on lollipops. I'll give it to you if you'll go back to Bridget."

Tommy's eyes brighten. But as quickly the charming blue in them darkens again. There is no tuck shop between this and the Court.

"'Tisn't any good," says he mournfully, "the shop's away down there,"

pointing vaguely backward on the journey he has come.

"You look strong in wind and limb; there is no reason to believe that the morrow's sun may not dawn on you," says Mr. Dysart. "And then think, Tommy, think what a joy you will be to old Molly Brien."

"Molly gives me four bull's-eyes for a penny," says Tommy reflectively.

"That's two to Mabel and two to me, because mammy says baby mustn't have any for fear she'd choke. If there's four for a penny, how many is there for this?" holding out the half crown that lies upon his little brown shapely palm.

"That's a sum," says Mr. Dysart. "Tommy, you're a cruel boy;" and having struggled with it for a moment, he says "one hundred and twenty."

"No!" says Tommy in a voice faint with hopeful unbelief. "Joyce, 'tisn't true, is it?"

"Quite true," says Joyce. "Just fancy, Tommy, one hundred and twenty bull's-eyes, all in one day!"

There is such a genuine support of his desire to get rid of Tommy in her tone that Dysart's heart rises within him.

"Tie it into my hankercher," says Tommy, without another second's hesitation. "Tie it tight, or it'll slip out and I'll lose it. Good-bye, and thank you, Mr. Dysart," thrusting a hot little fist into his. "I'll keep some of the hundred and twenty ones for you and Joyce."

He rushes away down the hill, eager to tell his grand news to Mabel, and presently Joyce and Dysart are alone again.

"You see you were not so clever a diplomatist as you thought yourself,"

says Joyce, smiling faintly; "Tommy came back."