The Late Mrs. Null Part 32

Before long, they came out into the open country and found themselves in a lane which led by a wide circuit to the road pa.s.sing Mrs Keswick's house. The old sorrel certainly behaved admirably; he held back when he descended a declivity; he walked over the rough places; and he trotted steadily where the road was smooth.

"It seems like our Fate," said Annie, who now sat up without an arm around her, the protecting woods having been left behind, "he just takes us along without our having anything to do with it."

"He is not much of a horse," said Lawrence, clasping, in an un.o.bservable way, the little hand which lay by his side, "but the Fate is charming."

Fortunately there was no one upon the road to notice the reinless plight in which these two young people found themselves, and they were quite as well satisfied as if they had been doing their own driving.

After a little period of thought, Annie turned an earnest face to Lawrence, and she said: "Do you know that I never believed that you were really in love with Roberta March."

Lawrence squeezed her hand, but did not reply. He knew very well that he had loved Roberta March, and he was not going to lie about it.

"I thought so," she continued, "because I did not believe that any one, who was truly in love, would want to send other people about, to propose for him, as you did."

"That is not exactly the state of the case," he said, "but we must not talk of those things now. That is all pa.s.sed and gone."

"But if there ever was any love," she persisted, "are you sure that it is all gone?"

"Gone," he answered, earnestly, "as utterly and completely as the days of last summer."

And now the sorrel, of his own accord, stopped at Mrs Keswick's outer gate; and Lawrence, getting down, took up the reins, opened the gate, and drove to the house in quite a proper way.

When Mr Croft helped Annie to descend from the spring-wagon, he did not squeeze her hand, nor exchange with her any tender glances, for old Mrs Keswick was standing at the top of the steps. "Have you seen Letty?" she asked.

"Letty?" said Miss Annie. "Oh, yes," she added, as if she suddenly remembered that such a person existed, "Letty was at church, and she was very active."

"Well," said the old lady, "she must have taken more interest in the exercises than you did, for it is long past the time when I told her she must be home."

"I do not believe, madam," said Lawrence, "that any one could have taken more interest in the exercises of this morning, than we have."

At this, Annie could not help giving him a little look which would have provoked reflection in the mind of the old lady, had she not been very earnestly engaged in gazing out into the road, in the hope of seeing Letty.

When Lawrence had gone into the office, and had closed the door behind him, he stood in a meditative mood before the empty fireplace. He was making inquiries of himself in regard to what he had just done. He was not accusing himself, nor indulging in regrets; he was simply investigating the matter. Here he stood, a man accepted by two women.

If he had ever heard of any other man in a like condition, he would have called that man a scoundrel, and yet he did not deem himself a scoundrel.

The facts in the case were easy enough to understand. For the first time in his life he had looked into the eyes of a woman who loved him, and he had discovered to his utter surprise that he loved her. There had been no plan; no prudent outlook into her nature and feelings; no cautious insight into his own. He had taken part in a most unpremeditated act of pure and simple love; and that it was real and pure love on each side, he no more doubted than he doubted that he lived. And yet, had he been an impostor when, on that hill over there, he told Roberta March he loved her? No, he had been honest, he had loved her; and, since the time that he had been roused to action by the discovery of Junius Keswick's intentions to renew his suit, it had been a love full of a rare and alluring beauty. But its charm, its fascination, its very existence, had disappeared in the first flash of his knowledge that Annie Peyton loved him. Had his love for Roberta been a perfect one, had he been sure that she returned it, then it could not have been overthrown; but it had gone, and a love, complete and perfect, stood in its place. He had seen that he was loved, and he loved. That was all, but it would stand forever.

This was the state of the case, and now Lawrence set himself to discover if, in all ways, he had acted truly and honestly. He had been accepted by Miss March, but what sort of acceptance was it? Should he, as a man true to himself, accept such an acceptance? What was he to think of a woman who, very angry as he had been informed, had sent him a message, which meant everything in the world to him, if it meant anything, and had then dashed away without allowing him a chance to speak to her, or even giving him a nod of farewell. The last thing she had really said to him in this connection were those cruel words on Pine Top Hill, with which she had asked him to choose a spot in which to be rejected. Could he consider himself engaged? Would a woman who cared for him act towards him in such a manner? After all, was that acceptance anything more than the result of pique? And could he not, quite as justly, accept the rejection which she had professed herself anxious to give him.

A short time before, Lawrence had done his best to explain to his advantage these peculiarities of his status in regard to Miss March.

He had said to himself that she had threatened to reject him because she wished to punish him, and he had intended to implore her pardon, and expected to receive it. Over and over again, had he argued with himself in this strain, and yet, in spite of it all, he had not been able to bring himself into a state of mind in which he could sit down and write to her a letter, which, in his estimation, would be certain to seal and complete the engagement. "How very glad I am," he now said to himself, "that I never wrote that letter!" And this was the only decision at which he had arrived, when he heard Mrs Keswick calling to him from the yard.

He immediately went to the door, when the old lady informed him, that as Letty had not come back, and did not appear to be intending to come back, and that as none of the other servants on the place had made their appearance, he might as well come into the house, and try to satisfy his hunger on what cold food she and Mrs Null had managed to collect.

The most biting and spicy condiments of the little meal, to which the three sat down, were supplied by Mrs Keswick, who reviled without stint those utterly thoughtless and heedless colored people, who, once in the midst of their crazy religious exercises, totally forgot that they owed any duty whatever to those who employed them. Lawrence and Annie did not say much, but there was something peculiarly piquant in the way in which Annie brought and poured out the tea she had made, and which, with the exception of the old lady's remarks, was the only warm part of the repast; and there was an element of buoyancy in the manner of Mr Croft, as he took his cup to drink the tea. Although he said little at this meal, he thought a great deal, listening not at all to Mrs Keswick's tirades. "What a charmingly inconsiderate affair this has been!" he said to himself. "Nothing planned, nothing provided for, or against; all spontaneous, and from our very hearts. I never thought to tell her that she must say nothing to her aunt, until we had agreed how everything should, be explained, and I don't believe the idea that it is necessary to say anything to anybody, has entered her mind. But I must keep my eyes away from her if I don't want to bring on a premature explosion."

Whatever might be the result of the reasoning which this young man had to do with himself, it was quite plain that he was abundantly satisfied with things as they were.

It was beginning to be dark, when Letty and Uncle Isham returned and explained why they had been so late in returning.

Old Aunt Patsy had died in church.

CHAPTER XXVI.

"Lawrence," said Annie, on the forenoon of the next day, as they were sitting together in the parlor with the house to themselves, Mrs Keswick having gone to Aunt Patsy's cabin to supervise proceedings there, "Lawrence, don't you feel glad that we did not have a chance to speak to dear old Aunt Patsy about those little shoes? Perhaps she had forgotten that she had stolen them, and so went to heaven without that sin on her soul."

"That is a very comfortable way of looking at it," said Lawrence, "but wouldn't it be better to a.s.sume that she did not steal them?"

"I am very sorry," said Annie, "but that is not easy to do. But don't let us think anything more about that. And, don't you feel very glad that the poor old creature, who looked so happy as she sat singing and clapping her hands on her knees, didn't die until after we had left the church? If it had happened while we were there, I don't believe--"

"Don't believe what?" asked Lawrence.

"Well, that you now would be sitting with your arm on the back of my chair."

Lawrence was quite sure, from what had been told him, that Aunt Patsy's demise had taken place before they left the church, but he did not say so to Annie. He merely took his arm from the back of her chair, and placed it around her.

"And do you know," said she, "that Letty told me something, this morning, that is so funny and yet in a certain way so pathetic, that it made me laugh and cry both. She said that Aunt Patsy always thought that you were Mr Null."

At this, Lawrence burst out laughing, but Annie checked him and went on; "And she told Letty in church, when she saw us two come in, that she believed she could die happy now, since she had seen Miss Annie married to such a peart gentleman, and that it looked as if old miss had got over her grudge against him."

"And didn't Letty undeceive her?" asked Lawrence.

"No, she said it would be a pity to upset the mind of such an old woman, and she didn't do it."

"Then the good Aunt Patsy died," said Lawrence, "thinking I was that wretched tramp of a bone-dust pedler, which the fancy of your aunt has conjured up. That explains the interest the venerable colored woman took in me. It is now quite easy to understand; for, if your aunt abused your mythical husband to everybody, as she did to me, I don't wonder Aunt Patsy thought I was in danger."

"Poor old woman," said Annie, looking down at the floor, "I am so glad that we helped her to die happy."

"As she was obliged to antic.i.p.ate the truth," said Lawrence, "in order to derive any comfort from it, I am glad she did it. But although I am delighted, more than my words can tell you, to take the place of your Mr Null, you must not expect me to have any of his attributes."

"Now just listen to me, sir," said Annie. "I don't want you to say one word against Mr Null. If it had not been for that good Freddy, things would have been very different from what they are now. If you care for me at all, you owe me entirely to Freddy Null."

"Entirely?" asked Lawrence.

"Of course I mean in regard to opportunities of finding out things and saying them. If Aunt Keswick had supposed I was only Annie Peyton, she would not have allowed Mr Croft to interfere with her plans for Junius and me. I expected Mr Null to be of service to me, but no one could have imagined that he would have brought about anything like this."

"Blessed be Null!" exclaimed Lawrence.

Annie asked him to please to be more careful, for how did he know that one of the servants might not be sweeping the front porch, and of course, they would look in at the windows.

"But, my dear child," said Lawrence, pus.h.i.+ng back his chair to a prudent distance, "we must seriously consider this Null business. We shall have to inform your aunt of the present state of affairs, and before we do that, we must explain what sort of person Frederick Null, Esquire, really was--I am not willing to admit that he exists, even as a myth."

"Oh dear! oh dear!" exclaimed Annie. "We shall have a dreadful time!

When Aunt Keswick knows that there never was any Mr Null, and then hears that you and I are engaged, it will throw her into the most dreadful state of mind that she has ever been in, in her life; and father has told me of some of the awful family earthquakes that Aunt Keswick has brought about, when things went wrong with her."

"We must be very cautious," said Lawrence, "and neither of us must say a word, or do anything that may arouse her suspicions, until we have settled upon the best possible method of making the facts known to her. The case is indeed a complicated one."