The Late Mrs. Null Part 23

Miss Annie, still standing in front of the door, now regarded Lawrence with a certain degree of thoughtfullness on her countenance, which presently changed to a half smile. "If I were perfectly sure," she said, "that she would reject you, I would try to get her here, and have the matter settled, but I don't know her very well yet, and can't feel at all certain as to what she might do."

"I like your frankness," said Lawrence, "but, as I said before, you are very cruel."

"Not at all," said she, "I am very kind, only--"

"You don't show it," interrupted Lawrence.

At this Miss Annie laughed. "Kindness isn't of much use, if it is shut up, is it?" she said. "I suppose you think it is one of those virtues that we ought to act out, as well as feel, if we want any credit. And now, isn't there something I can do for you besides bringing another man's sweetheart to you?"

Lawrence smiled. "I don't believe she is his sweetheart," he said, "and I want to find out if I am right."

"It is my opinion," said Miss Annie, "that you ought to think more about your sprained ankle and your general health, than about having your mind settled by Miss March. I should think that keeping your blood boiling, in this way, would inflame your joints."

"The doctor didn't tell me what to think about," said Lawrence. "He only said I must not walk."

"I haven't heard yet," said Miss Annie, "what you would like to have to eat." "I don't wish to give the slightest trouble," answered Lawrence.

"What do you generally give people in such sc.r.a.pes as this? Tea and toast?"

Annie laughed. "Nonsense," said she. "What you want is the best meal you can get. Aunt said if there was anything you particularly liked she would have it made for you."

"Do not think of such a thing," said Lawrence. "Give me just what the family has."

"Would you like Miss March to bring it out to you?" she asked.

"The word cruel cannot express your disposition," said Lawrence. "I pity Mr Null." "Poor man," said she; "but it would be a good thing for you if you could keep your mind as quiet as his is." And with that she went into the house.

After dinner, Miss March did come out to inquire into Mr Croft's condition, but she was accompanied by Mrs Keswick. Lawrence invited the ladies to come in and be seated, but Roberta stood on the gra.s.s in front of the door, as Miss Annie had done, while Mrs Keswick entered the room, looked into the ice-water pitcher, and examined things generally, to see if Uncle Isham had been guilty of any sins of omission.

"Do you feel quite at ease now?" said Miss March.

"My ankle don't trouble me," said Lawrence, "but I never felt so uncomfortable and dissatisfied in my life." And with these latter words he gave the lady a look which was intended to be, and which probably was, full of meaning to her.

"Wouldn't you like some books?" said Mrs Keswick, now appearing from the back of the room. "You haven't anything to read. There are plenty of books in the house, but they are all old."

"I think those are the most delightful of books," said Miss March. "I have been looking over the volumes on your shelves, Mrs Keswick. I am sure there are a good many of them Mr Croft would like to read, even if he has read them before. There are lots of queer old-time histories and biographies, and sets of bound magazines, some of them over a hundred years old. Would you like me to select some for you, Mr Croft? Or shall I write some of the t.i.tles on a slip of paper, and let you select for yourself?"

"I shall be delighted," said Lawrence, "to have you make a choice for me; and I think the list would be the better plan, because books would be so heavy to carry about."

"I will do it immediately," said Miss March, and she walked rapidly to the house.

"Now then," said Mrs Keswick, "I'll put a chair out here on the gra.s.s, close to the door. It's shady there, and I should think it would be pleasant for both of you, if she would sit there and read to you out of those books. She is a fine woman, that Miss March--a much finer woman than I thought she could be, before I knew her."

"She is, indeed," said Lawrence.

"I suppose you think she is the finest woman in the world?" said the old lady, with a genial grin.

"What makes you suppose so?" asked Lawrence.

"Haven't I eyes?" said Mrs Keswick. "But you needn't make any excuses.

You have made an excellent choice, and I hope you may succeed in getting her. Perhaps you have succeeded?" she added, giving Lawrence an earnest look, with a question in it.

Lawrence did not immediately reply. It was not in his nature to confide his affairs to other people, and yet he had done so much of it, of late, that he did not see why he should make an exception against Mrs Keswick, who was, indeed, the only person who seemed inclined to be friendly to his suit. He might as well let her know how matters stood. "No," he said, "I have not yet succeeded, and I am very sorry that this accident has interfered with my efforts to do so."

"Don't let it interfere," said the old lady, her eyes sparkling, while her purple sun-bonnet was suddenly and severely bobbed. "You have just as good a chance now as you ever had, and all you have to do is to make the most of it. When she comes out here to read to you, you can talk to her just as well as if you were in the woods, or on top of a hill.

n.o.body'll come here to disturb you; I'll take care of that."

"You are very kind," said Lawrence, somewhat wondering at her enthusiasm.

"I intended to go away and leave her here with you," continued Mrs Keswick, "if I could find a good opportunity to do so, but she hit on the best plan herself. And now I'll be off and leave the coast clear. I will come again before dark and put some more of that stuff on your ankle. If you want anything, ring this bell, and if Isham doesn't hear you, somebody will call him. He has orders to keep about the house."

"You are putting me under very great obligations to you, madam," said Lawrence.

But the old lady did not stop to hear any thanks, and hastened to clear the coast.

Lawrence had to wait a long time for his list of books, but at last it came; and, much to his surprise and chagrin, Mrs Null brought it. "Miss March asked me to give you this," she said, "so that you can pick out just what books you want."

Lawrence took the paper, but did not look at it. He was deeply disappointed and hurt. His whole appearance showed it.

"You don't seem glad to get it," said Miss Annie. Lawrence looked at her, his face darkening. "Did you persuade Miss March," he said, "to stay in the house and let you bring this?"

"Now, Mr Croft," said the young lady, a very decided flush coming into her face, "that is going too far. You have no right to accuse me of such a thing. I am not going to help in your love affairs, but I don't intend to be mean about it, either. Miss March asked me to bring that list, and at first I wouldn't do it, for I knew, just as well as I know anything, that you expected her to come to you with it, and I was very sure you wanted to see her more than the paper. I refused two or three times, but she said, at last, that if I didn't take it, she'd send it by some one in the house; so I just picked it up and brought it right along. I don't like her as much as I did."

"Why not?" asked Lawrence.

"You needn't accept a man if you don't want him," said Miss Annie, "but there is no need of being cruel to him, especially when he is laid up.

If she didn't intend to come out to you again, she ought not to have made you believe so. You did expect her to come, didn't you?"

"Most certainly," said Lawrence, in rather a doleful tone. "Yes, and there is the chair she was to sit in," said Miss Annie, "while you said seven words about the books and ten thousand about the way your heart was throbbing. I see Aunt Keswick's hand in that, as plain as can be. I don't say I'd put her in that chair if I could do it, but I certainly am sorry she disappointed you so. Would you like to have any of those books? If you would, I'll get them for you."

"I am much obliged, Mrs Null," said Lawrence, "but I don't think I care for any books. And let me say that I am very sorry for the way I spoke to you, just now."

"Oh, don't mention that," said she. "If I'd been in your place, I should have been mad enough to say anything. But it's no use to sit here and be grumpy. You'd better let me go and get you a book. The "Critical Magazine" for 1767 and 1768, is on that list, and I know there are lots of queer, interesting things in it, but it takes a good while to hunt them out from the other things for which you would not care at all. And then there are all the "Spectators," and "Ramblers," and "The World Displayed" in eight volumes, which, from what I saw when I looked through it, seems to be a different kind of world from the one I live in; and there are others that you will see on your list. But there is one book which I have been reading lately which I think you will find odder and funnier than any of the rest. It is the "Geographical Grammar"

by Mr Salmon. Suppose I bring you that. It is a description of the whole world, written more than a hundred years ago, by an Irish gentleman who, I think, never went anywhere."

"Thank you," said Lawrence, "I shall be obliged to you if you will be kind enough to bring me that one." He was glad for her to go away, even for a little time, that he might think. The smart of the disappointment caused by the non-appearance of Miss March was beginning to subside a little. Looking at it more quietly and reasonably, he could see that, in her position, it would be actually unmaidenly for her to come to him by herself. It was altogether another thing for this other girl, and, therefore, perhaps it was quite proper to send her. But, in spite of whatever reasonableness there might have been in it, he chafed under this propriety. It would have been far better, he thought, if she had come and told him that she could not possibly accept him, and that nothing more must be said about it. But then he did not believe, if she had given him time to say the words he wished to say, that she would have come to such a decision; and as he called up her lovely face and figure, as it stood framed in the open doorway, with a background of the sunlit arbor and fields, the gorgeous distant foliage, with the blue sky and its white clouds and circling birds, he thought of the rapture and ecstasy which would have come to him, if she had listened to his words, and had given him but a smile of encouragement.

But here came Mrs Null, with a fat brown book in her hand. "One of the funniest things," she said, as she came to the door, "is Mr Salmon's chapter on paradoxes. He thinks it would be quite improper to issue a book of this kind without alluding to geographical paradoxes. Listen to this one." And then she read to him the elucidation of the apparent paradox that there is a certain place in this world where the wind always blows from the south; and another explaining the statement that in certain cannibal islands the people eat themselves. "There is something he says about Virginia," said she, turning over the pages, "which I want you to be sure to read."

"Won't you sit down," said Lawrence, "and read to me some of those extracts? You know just where to find them."

"That chair wasn't put there for me," said Miss Annie, with a smile.

"Nonsense," said Lawrence. "Won't you please sit down? I ought to have asked you before. Perhaps it is too cool for you, out there."

"Oh, not at all," said she. "The air is still quite warm." And she took her seat on the chair which was placed close to the door-step, and she read to him some of the surprising and interesting facts which Mr Salmon had heard, in a Dublin coffee-house, about Virginia and the other colonies, and also some of those relating to the kindly way in which slave-holders in South America, when they killed a slave to feed their hounds, would send a quarter to a neighbor, expecting some day to receive a similar favor in return. When they had laughed over these, she read some very odd and surprising statements about Southern Europe, and the people of far-away lands; and so she went on, from one thing to another, talking a good deal about what she had read, and always on the point of stopping and giving the book to Lawrence, until the short autumnal afternoon began to draw to its close, and he told her that it was growing too chilly for her to sit out on the gra.s.s any longer.

"Very well," said she, closing the book, and handing it to him, "you can read the rest of it yourself, and if you want any other books on the list, just let me know by Uncle Isham, and I will send them to you. He is coming now to see after you. I wonder," she said, stopping for a moment as she turned to leave, "if Miss March had been sitting in that chair, if you would have had the heart to tell her to go away; or if you would have let her sit still, and take cold."