Love Me Little, Love Me Long Part 60

All this day Reginald George Bazalgette, Esq., might have been defined "a pest in search of a playmate." Tom had got a holiday. Lucy only came out of her workshop to be seized by Mr. Fountain. David, who was waiting in the garden for Lucy, begged Reginald to excuse him for once. The young gentleman had recourse as a _pis aller_ to his mamma. He invaded her bedroom, and besought her piteously to play at battledoor. That lady, sighing deeply at being taken from her dress, consented. Her soul not being in it, she played very badly. Her cub did not fail to tell her so. "Why, I can keep up a hundred with Mr.

Dodd," said he.

"Oh, we all know Mr. Dodd is perfection," said the lady with a sneer.

She was piqued with David. He had gone and left her in a brutal way, to make his apologies to Lucy.

"No, he is not," said Reginald. "I have found him out. He is as unjust as the rest of them."

"Dear me! and, pray, what has he done?"

"I will tell you, mamma, if you will promise not to tell papa, because he told me not to listen, and I didn't listen, mamma, because, you know, a gentleman always keeps his word; but they talked so loud the words would come into my ear; I could not keep them out. Mamma, are there any naughty ladies here?"

"No, my dear."

"Then what did papa mean, warning Mr. Dodd against one?"

Mrs. Bazalgette began to listen as he wished.

"Oh, he called her all the names. He said she was a statue of flirtation."

"Who? Lucy?"

"Lucy? no! the naughty lady--the one that had twelve husbands. He kept warning him, and warning him, and then Mr. Dodd and papa they began to quarrel almost, because Mr. Dodd said the naughty lady was quite young, and papa said she was ever so old. Mr. Dodd said she was twenty-one. But papa told him she must be more than that, because she had a child that would be fifteen years old; only it died. How old would sister Emily be if she was alive, mamma? La, mamma, how pretty you are: you have got red cheeks like Lucy--redder, oh, ever so much redder--and in general they are so pale before dinner. Let me kiss you, mamma. I do love the ladies when their cheeks are red."

"There! there! now go on, dear; tell me some more."

"It is very interesting, isn't it, dear mamma?"

"It is amusing, at all events."

"No, it is not amusing--at least, what came after, isn't: it is wicked, it is unjust, it is abominable."

"Tell me, dear."

"It turned out it wasn't the naughty lady Mr. Dodd was in love for, and who do you think he is in love of?"

"I have not an idea."

"MY LUCY!!!"

"Nonsense, child."

"No, no, mamma, it is not. He owned it plump."

"Are you quite sure, love?"

"Upon my honor."

"What did they say next?"

"Oh, next papa began to talk his fine words that I don't know what the meaning of them is one bit. But Mr. Dodd, he could make them out, I suppose, for he said, 'So, then, the upshot is--' There, now, what is upshot? I don't know. How stupid grown-up people are; they keep using words that one doesn't know the meaning of."

"Never mind, love! tell me. What came _after_ upshot?" said Mrs.

Bazalgette, soothingly, with great apparent calmness and flas.h.i.+ng eye.

"How kind you are to-day, mamma! That is twice you have called me love, and three times dear; only think. I should love you if you were always so kind, and your cheeks as red as they are now."

"Never mind my cheeks. What did Mr. Dodd say? Try and remember--come--'The upshot was--'"

"The upshot was--what was the upshot? I forget. No, I remember; the upshot was, if Lucy said 'yes,' papa would not say 'no;' that meant to marry him. Now didn't you promise me her ever so long ago--the day you and I agreed if I went a whole day without being naughty once I should have her for ever and ever? and I did go."

"Go to Lucy's room, and tell her to come to me," said Mrs. Bazalgette, in a stern, thoughtful voice, which startled poor Reginald, coming so soon after the _calinerie._ However, he told her it was no use his going to Lucy's room, for she was out in the garden; he had seen her there walking with Mr. Fountain. Reginald then ran to the window which commanded the garden, to look for Lucy. He had scarcely reached it when he began to squeak wildly, "Come here! come here! come here!"

Mrs. Bazalgette was at the window in a moment, and lo! at the end of the garden, walking slowly side by side, were Lucy and Mr. Dodd.

Ridiculous as it may appear, a pang of jealousy shot through the married flirt's heart that made her almost feel sick. This was followed at the interval of half a second by as pretty a flame of hatred as ever the _spretoe injuria formoe_ lighted up in a coquette's heart. Doubt drove in its smaller sting besides, and at sight of the couple she resolved to have better evidence than Reginald's, especially as to Lucy's sentiments. The plan she hit upon was effective, but vulgar, and must not be witnessed by a boy of inconvenient memory and mistimed fluency. She got rid of him with high-principled dexterity. "Reginald," said she, sadly, "you are a naughty boy, a disobedient boy, to listen when your papa told you not, and to tell me a pack of falsehoods. I must either tell your papa, or I must punish you myself; I prefer to do it myself, he would whip you so"; with this she suddenly opened her dressing-room door, and pushed the terrible infant in, and locked the door. She then told him through the keyhole he had better cease yelling, because, if he kept quiet, his punishment would only last half an hour, and she flew downstairs.

There was a large hot-house with two doors, one of which came very near to the house door that opened into the garden. Mrs. Bazalgette entered the hothouse at the other end, and, hidden by the exotic trees and flowers, made rapidly for the door Lucy and David must pa.s.s. She found it wide open. She half shut it, and slipped behind it, listening like a hare and spying like a hawk through the hinges. And, strange as it may appear, she had an idea she should make a discovery. As the finished sportsman watches a narrow ride in the wood, not despairing by a snap-shot to bag his hare as she crosses it, though seen but for a moment, so the Bazalgette felt sure that, as the couple pa.s.sed her ambush, something, either in the two sentences they might utter, or, more probably, in their tones and general manner, would reveal to one of her experience on what footing they were.

A shrewd calculation! But things will be things. They take such turns, I might without exaggeration say twists, that calculation is baffled, and prophecy dissolved into pitch and toss. This thing turned just as not expected. _Primo,_ instead of getting only a snap-shot, Mrs.

Bazalgette heard every word of a long conversation; and, _secundo,_ when she had heard it she could not tell for certain on what footing the lady and gentleman were. At first, from their familiarity, she inclined to think they were lovers; but, the more she listened, the more doubtful she seemed. Lucy was the chief speaker, and what she said showed an undisguised interest in her companion; but the subject accounted in great measure for that; she was talking of his approaching voyage, of the dangers and hards.h.i.+ps of his profession, and of his return two years hence, his chances of promotion, etc. But here was no proof positive of love; they were acquaintances of some standing. Then Lucy's manner struck her as rather amicable than amorous. She was calm, kind, self-possessed, and almost voluble. As for David, he only got in a word here and there.

When he did, there was something so different in his voice from anything he had ever bestowed on _her,_ that she hated him, and longed to stick scissors into him from the rear, unseen. At last Lucy suddenly recollected, or seemed to recollect, she was busy, and retired hastily--so hastily that David saw too late his opportunity lost. But the music of her voice had so charmed him that he did not like to interrupt it even to speak of that which was nearest his heart. David sighed deeply, standing there alone.

Mrs. Bazalgette clinched her little fists and looked round for the means of vengeance. David went down on his knees. La Bazalgette glared through the crack, and wondered what on earth he was at now. Oh! he was praying. "He loves her: he is eccentricity itself; so he is praying for her, and on _my_ doorsteps" (the householder wounded as well as the flirt). It was lucky she had not "a thunderbolt in her eye"--Shakespeare, or a celestial messenger of the wrong sort would have descended on the devout mariner. It was more than Mrs. Bazalgette could bear: she had now and then, not often, unladylike impulses. One of them had set her crouching behind the door of an outhouse, and listening through a crack; and now she had another, an irresistible one: it was, to take that empty flower-pot, fling it as hard as ever she could at the devotee, then shut the door quick, fly out at the other door, and leave her faithless swain in the agony of knowing himself detected and exposed by some unknown and undiscoverable enemy.

For a vengeance extemporized in less than half a second this was very respectable. Well, she clawed the flower-pot noiselessly, put her other hand on the door, cast a hasty glance at the means of retreat, and--things took another twist: she heard the rustle of a coming gown, and drew back again, and out came Lucy, and nearly ran over David, who was not on his knees after all, but down on his nose, prostrate Orientally. The fact is, Lucy, among her other qualities, good and bad, was a born housewife, and solicitously careful of certain odds and ends called property. She found she had dropped one of her gloves in the garden, and she came back in a state of disproportionate uneasiness to find it, and nearly ran over David Dodd.

"What _are_ you doing, Mr. Dodd?"

David arose from his Oriental position, and, being a young man whose impulse always was to tell the simple truth, replied, "I was kissing the place where you stood so long."

He did not feel he had done anything extraordinary, so he gave her this information composedly; but her face was scarlet in an instant; and he, seeing that, began to blush too. For once Lucy's tact was baffled; she did not know what on earth to say, and she stood blus.h.i.+ng like a girl of fifteen.

Then she tried to turn it off.

"Mr. Dodd, how can you be so ridiculous?" said she, affecting humorous disdain.

But David was not to be put down now; he was launched.

"I am not ridiculous for loving and wors.h.i.+ping you, for you are worthy of even more love than any human heart can hold."

"Oh, hush, Mr. Dodd. I must not hear this."

"Miss Lucy, I can't keep it any longer--you must, you shall hear me.

You can despise my love if you will, but you _shall_ know it before you reject it."

"Mr. Dodd, you have every right to be heard, but let me persuade you not to insist. Oh, why did I come back?"

"The first moment I saw you, Miss Lucy, it was a new life to me. I never looked twice at any girl before. It is not your beauty only--oh, no! it is your goodness--goodness such as I never thought was to be found on earth. Don't turn your head from me; I know my defects; could I look on you and not see them? My manners are blunt and rude--oh, how different from yours! but you could soon make me a fine gentleman, I love you so. And I am only the first mate of an Indiaman; but I should be a captain next voyage, Miss Lucy, and a sailor like me has no expenses; all he has is his wife's. The first lady in the land will not be petted as you will, if you will look kindly on me. Listen to me," trying to tempt her. "No, Miss Lucy, I have nothing to offer you worth your acceptance, only my love. No man ever loved woman as I love you; it is not love, it is wors.h.i.+p, it is adoration! Ah! she is going to speak to me at last!"