The Three Clerks Part 48

'Would you let me come with you a little while! Look here'--and she crept softly around to the other side of her sister, sidling with little steps away from the Frenchman, at whom, however, she kept furtively looking, as though she feared that he would detect her in the act. 'Look here, Gertrude,' she said, twitching her sister's arm; 'that gentleman there--you see him, don't you? he's a Frenchman, and I don't know how to get away from him.'

'How to get away from him?' said Gertrude. 'That's M. Delabarbe de l'Empereur, a great friend of Mrs. Val's, and a very quiet sort of man, I believe; he won't eat you.'

'No, he won't eat me, I know; but I can't look at anything, because he will walk so close to me! Mayn't I come with you?'

Gertrude told her she might, and so Katie made good her escape, hiding herself from her enemy as well as she could behind her sister's petticoats. He, poor man, was perhaps as rejoiced at the arrangement as Katie herself; at any rate he made no attempt to regain his prey, but went on by himself, looking as placidly stern as ever, till he was absorbed by Mrs. Val's more immediate party, and then he devoted himself to her, while M. Jaquetanape settled with Clementina the properest arrangement for the waltzes of the evening.

Katie was beginning to be tranquilly happy, and was listening to the enthusiasm of Ugolina Neverbend, who declared that flowers were the female poet's fitting food--it may be doubted whether she had ever tried it--when her heart leaped within her on hearing a sharp, clear, well-known voice, almost close behind her. It was Charley Tudor. After her silent promenade with M.

Delabarbe de l'Empereur, Katie had been well pleased to put up with the obscure but yet endurable volubility of Ugolina; but now she felt almost as anxious to get quit of Ugolina as she had before been to shake off the Frenchman.

'Flowers are Nature's chef-d'oeuvre,' said Ugolina; 'they convey to me the purest and most direct essence of that heavenly power of production which is the sweetest evidence which Jehovah gives us of His presence.'

'Do they?' said Katie, looking over her shoulder to watch what Charley was doing, and to see whether he was coming to notice her.

'They are the bright stars of His immediate handiwork,' said Ugolina; 'and if our dim eyes could read them aright, they would whisper to us the secret of His love.'

'Yes, I dare say they would,' said Katie, who felt, perhaps, a little disappointed because Charley lingered a while shaking hands with Mrs. Val and Clementina Golightly.

It was, however, but for a moment. There was much shaking of hands to be done, and a considerable taking off of hats to be gone through; and as Alaric and Charley encountered the head of the column first, it was only natural that they should work their way through it gradually. Katie, however, never guessed--how could she?--that Charley had calculated that by reaching her last he would be able to remain with her.

She was still listening to Ugolina, who was mounting higher and higher up to heaven, when she found her hand in Charley's.

Ugolina might now mount up, and get down again as best she could, for Katie could no longer listen to her.

Alaric had not seen her yet since her ducking. She had to listen to and to answer his congratulations, Charley standing by and making his comments.

'Charley says you took to the water quite naturally, and swam like a duck,' said Alaric.

'Only she went in head foremost,' said Charley.

'All bathers ought to do that,' said Alaric; 'and tell me, Katie, did you feel comfortable when you were in the water?'

'Indeed I don't recollect anything about it,' said she, 'only that I saw Charley coming to me, just when I was going to sink for the last time.'

'Sink! Why, I'm told that you floated like a deal board.'

'The big hat and the crinoline kept her up,' said Charley; 'she had no idea of sinking.'

'Oh! Charley, you know I was under the water for a long time; and that if you had not come, just at that very moment, I should never have come up again.'

And then Alaric went on, and Charley and Katie were left together.

How was she to give him the purse? It was burning a hole in her pocket till she could do so; and yet how was she to get it out of her possession into his, and make her little speech, here in the public garden? She could have done it easily enough at home in the drawing-room at Surbiton Cottage.

'And how do you like the gardens?' asked Charley.

'Oh! they are beautiful; but I have hardly been able to see anything yet. I have been going about with a great big Frenchman --there, that man there--he has such a queer name.'

'Did his name prevent your seeing?'

'No, not his name; I didn't know his name then.

But it seemed so odd to be walking about with such a man as that.

But I want to go back, and look at the black and yellow roses in that house, there. Would you go with me? that is, if we may. I wonder whether we may!'

Charley was clearly of opinion that they might, and should, and would; and so away they sallied back to the roses, and Katie began to enjoy the first instalment of the happiness which she had antic.i.p.ated. In the temple of the roses the crowd at first was great, and she could not get the purse out of her pocket, nor make her speech; but after a while the people pa.s.sed on, and there was a lull before others filled their places, and Katie found herself opposite to a beautiful black rose, with no one close to her but Charley.

'I have got something for you,' she said; and as she spoke she felt herself to be almost hot with blus.h.i.+ng.

'Something for me!' said Charley; and he also felt himself abashed, he did not know why.

'It's only a very little thing,' said Katie, feeling in her pocket, 'and I am almost ashamed to ask you to take it. But I made it all myself; no one else put a st.i.tch in it,' and so saying, and looking round to see that she was not observed, she handed her gift to Charley.

'Oh! Katie, dearest Katie,' said he, 'I am so much obliged to you--I'll keep it till I die.'

'I didn't know what to make that was better,' said she.

'Nothing on earth could possibly be better,' said he.

'A plate of bread and b.u.t.ter and a purse are a very poor return for saving one's life,' said she, half laughing, half crying.

He looked at her with his eyes full of love; and as he looked, he swore within himself that come what might, he would never see Norah Geraghty again, but would devote his life to an endeavour to make himself worthy of the angel that was now with him. Katie the while was looking up anxiously into his face. She was thinking of no other love than that which it became her to feel for the man who had saved her life. She was thinking of no other love; but her young heart was opening itself to a very different feeling. She was sinking deep, deep in waters which were to go near to drown her warm heart; much nearer than those other waters which she fancied had all but closed for ever over her life.

She looked into his face and saw that he was pleased; and that, for the present, was enough for her. She was at any rate happy now. So they pa.s.sed on through the roses, and then lost themselves among the geraniums, and wondered at the gigantic rhododendrons, and beautiful azaleas, and so went on from house to house, and from flower-bed to flower-bed, Katie talking and Charley listening, till she began to wonder at her former supineness, and to say both to herself and out loud to her companion, how very, very, very glad she was that her mother had let her come.

Poor Katie!--dear, darling, bonny Katie!--sweet sweetest, dearest child! why, oh why, has that mother of thine, that tender-hearted loving mother, put thee unguarded in the way of such peril as this? Has she not sworn to herself that over thee at least she would watch as a hen does over her young, so that no unfortunate love should quench thy young spirit, or blanch thy cheek's bloom?

Has she not trembled at the thought of what would have befallen thee, had thy fate been such as Linda's? Has she not often--oh, how often!--on her knees thanked the Almighty G.o.d that Linda's spirit was not as thine; that this evil had happened to the lamb whose temper had been fitted by Him to endure it? And yet--here thou art--all unguarded, all unaided, left by thyself to drink of the cup of sweet poison, and none near to warn thee that the draught is deadly.

Alas!--'twould be useless to warn thee now. The false G.o.d has been placed upon the altar, the temple all s.h.i.+ning with gems and gold has been built around him, the incense-cup is already swinging; nothing will now turn the idolater from her wors.h.i.+p, nothing short of a miracle.

Our Katie's childish days are now all gone. A woman's pa.s.sion glows within her breast, though as yet she has not scanned it with a woman's intelligence. Her mother, listening to a child's entreaty, had suffered her darling to go forth for a child's amus.e.m.e.nt. It was doomed that the child should return no more; but in lieu of her, a fair, heart-laden maiden, whose every fondest thought must henceforth be of a stranger's welfare and a stranger's fate.

But it must not be thought that Charley abused the friends.h.i.+p of Mrs. Woodward, and made love to Katie, as love is usually made--with warm words, a.s.surances of affection, with squeezing of the hand, with sighs, and all a lover's ordinary catalogue of resources. Though we have said that he was a false G.o.d, yet he was hardly to be blamed for the temple, and gems, and gold, with which he was endowed; not more so, perhaps, than the unconscious bud which is made so sacred on the banks of the Egyptian river.

He loved too, perhaps as warmly, though not so fatally as Katie did; but he spoke no word of his love. He walked among the flowers with her, laughing and listening to her in his usual light-hearted, easy manner; every now and again his arm would thrill with pleasure, as he felt on it the touch of her little fingers, and his heart would leap within him as he gazed on the speaking beauty of her face; but he was too honest-hearted to talk to the young girl, to Mrs. Woodward's child, of love. He talked to her as to a child--but she listened to him and loved him as a woman.

And so they rambled on till the hour appointed for quitting this Elysium had arrived. Every now and again they had a glimpse of some one of their party, which had satisfied Katie that they were not lost. At first Clementina was seen tracing with her parasol on the turf the plan of a new dance. Then Ugolina pa.s.sed by them describing the poetry of the motion of the spheres in a full flow of impa.s.sioned eloquence to M. Delabarbe de l'Empereur: '_C'est toujours vrai; ce que mademoiselle dit est toujours vrai_,'

was the Frenchman's answer, which they heard thrice repeated. And then Lactimel and Captain Val were seen together, the latter having disappointed the prophecies which had been made respecting him. Lactimel had an idea that as the Scotts were great people, they were all in Parliament, and she was endeavouring to persuade Captain Val that something ought to be done for the poor.

'Think,' said she, 'only think, Captain Scott, of all the money that this _fete_ must cost.'

'A doosed sight,' said the captain, hardly articulating from under his thick, sandy-coloured moustache, which, growing downwards from his nose, looked like a heavy thatch put on to protect his mouth from the inclemency of the clouds above. 'A doosed sight,' said the captain.

'Now suppose, Captain Scott, that all this money could be collected. The tickets, you know, and the dresses, and----'

'I wish I knew how to do it,' said the captain.

Lactimel went on with her little scheme for expending the cost of the flower-show in bread and bacon for the poor Irish of Saffron Hill; but Charley and Katie heard no more, for the mild philosopher pa.s.sed out of hearing and out of sight.

At last Katie got a poke in her back from a parasol, just as Charley had expended half a crown, one of Mr. M'Ruen's last, in purchasing for her one simple beautiful flower, to put into her hair that night.