Her Season in Bath Part 13

"Oh!" she said, "this is what I have prayed for. G.o.d has heard me, and it is come. My beautiful princess has come. You are my beautiful princess, and I shall always love you. I will get Brian to buy lots of things; he will be here after school. Does the gentleman know?"

"Yes, he brought me."

"Then I shall love him, too; you are both good. I shall try and make father know you brought the money; but he does not understand much now.

Hark! he is calling--he is awake!"

Norah hastened back to her post, and Griselda followed her.

Leslie Travers had been standing by the sick man's bed, and Griselda, ashamed of her feelings of repulsion and shrinking, took her place by his side.

Suddenly a flash of intelligence came into those large dark eyes, and the man started up and gazed at Griselda, repeating:

"Who is she?--who is she?"

"The dear beautiful lady who has brought us all we want. Thank her, father--thank her!"

"Thank her!" he repeated. "_Who is she?_"

Then an exceeding bitter cry echoed through the rafters of the chamber as if it would pierce the very roof. And with that cry the man fell back on his pillow, saying:

"Phyllis--Phyllis! come back--come back!"

Griselda started towards the door, and Leslie Travers caught her, or she would have fallen down the steep, narrow stairs.

"Take me away--take me away! I cannot bear it! Oh, it is too dreadful!

That face--those eyes--that cry!"

"Yes," he said, carefully guiding her downstairs, and s.h.i.+elding her as much as possible from the inquisitive stare of the dwellers in the same house, taking her hand in his, and drawing it into his arm: "You are not accustomed to such sad sights, the poverty and the squalor."

"It was the man who frightened me. What made him call Phyllis--Phyllis!

that beautiful sacred name, for it was my mother's?"

"He was raving; he fancied he was on the stage. He will not live many days, and then we will see that the child is cared for."

The "_we_" escaped his lips before he was aware of it; but the time for reticence was past. He turned into the Abbey, and Griselda made no resistance. Then with impa.s.sioned earnestness Leslie Travers told his love, and often as the tale is told, it is seldom rehea.r.s.ed with more simple manly fervour. For in the reality of his love Leslie Travers forgot all the flowery and fulsome love epithets which were the fas.h.i.+on of the day. He did not kneel at her feet and vow he was her slave; he did not call her by a thousand names of endearment; but he made her feel perfect confidence in his sincerity. This confidence ever awakes a response in the heart of a true woman, and makes her ready to trust her future in his hands who asks to guard it henceforth.

"Yes," she had answered in a low but clear tone; "yes, I thank you for the kindness you do me."

He tried to stop her, but she went on:

"It _is_ a kindness to take a friendless and penniless orphan to your heart." Then she looked up at him, and reading in his clear pure eyes the story his lips had so lately uttered, she added with a smile, through the April mist of tears in her beautiful eyes: "Yes, it _is_ a kindness, let me take it as such; but not leave myself your debtor, for I will give you in return all my heart, and be henceforth to you tender and true."

He seized her hands in rapture, and kissed them pa.s.sionately.

"We are in a church," he said; "let us seal our betrothal here, and pray for G.o.d's blessing."

They were hidden from sight as they stood within the entrance of Prior Bird's Chantry Chapel, and there, hand clasped in hand, the young lovers knelt and silently prayed for G.o.d's blessing.

As they rose, Griselda looked round, and a blast of chill air came over her from the opening of a side door. She shuddered, and said:

"How cold it is!"

"Yes; cold and damp. Let us hasten out into the suns.h.i.+ne."

"Who opened that door?" she said.

"Some old woman, I dare say, who comes to dust and clean," he answered, as they walked down the nave, surrounded, as it there was, with many tombs, and the walls crowded with tablets in memory of the dead.

Lady Jane Waller's stately monument, and Bishop Montague's, were then, as now, conspicuous; and Griselda paused for a moment by the rec.u.mbent figure of the Lady Jane.

As she did so, a figure, well known and dreaded, was seen coming from behind the monument.

Griselda clasped Leslie Travers's arm with both hands, and said:

"Let us hasten away--we are watched."

But Leslie turned, and faced Sir Maxwell Danby.

"The shadow of the church is a better trysting-place than the shelter of the dwellings in Crown Alley," he said, hissing the words out in what was hardly more than a whisper.

Leslie was on the point of retorting angrily, when he controlled himself:

"This is not the time and place," he said, "to demand an apology for your words, Sir Maxwell Danby. I will seek it elsewhere."

But Griselda clung to his arm, and tried to advance towards the side door to get away from the man, who had dogged her steps.

"Come--come, I pray you," she said; "do not stay."

And Leslie Travers, saying in low but decided tones, "I will seek satisfaction elsewhere," let the door swing behind him, and he and Griselda pa.s.sed out of the dim Abbey into the suns.h.i.+ne.

It was still bright and beautiful without, and the fair city lay under the shadow of the encircling hills, which were touched with the glory of a brilliant winter's day.

A slight fall of snow had defined the outline of church and houses, and the leafless trees were sparkling with ten thousand diamonds on their branches.

The keen, crisp wind had dried the footways, and there was nothing on the smooth-paved roads to make walking anything but delightful.

"I want to take you to my mother now," Leslie said. "Will you come?"

"Will she be kind to me?" Griselda asked. "Do you think she will be kind to me?"

"Kind! Pride in you is more likely to be her feeling, I should venture to say."

"But," Griselda said, casting anxious looks behind, "I am really afraid of Sir Maxwell Danby. He will go to the North Parade with all haste, or find Lady Betty in the Pump Room, and speak evil of me."

"Let him dare to do so!" Leslie said. "I will challenge him, if he dares to take your name on his lips!"

"Oh no, no!" Griselda said; "no! Promise you will not quarrel with him?

He is a man who would be a dangerous foe."