Wild Heather Part 21

When I entered the breakfast-room this sun-s.h.i.+ny spring morning, I interrupted a very animated _tete-a-tete_ between my father and his wife. I sat down quietly. Neither spoke to me beyond saying the most conventional "Good morning," and I ate in feverish haste what breakfast I required. Immediately afterwards I rushed to my room, pinned some fresh violets into my pretty morning dress, put on a shady hat, and desired Morris to accompany me to Hyde Park. Morris was quite agreeable.

As we walked along I saw that she was murmuring something under her breath.

"What are you saying, Morris?" I asked, speaking with slight impatience, for my heart was beating so very fast I could scarcely control myself.

"I dislike people muttering in the streets," I continued.

"I am sorry, miss," said Morris. "In future I'll keep my thoughts to myself; they are all about you. Oh, dear! I wish I had one of those Marguerite daisies; maybe I'd know the future if I could pull off the petals."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"He loves me, he don't; he'll have me, he won't; he would if he could, but he can't, so he won't," said Morris, bringing out the gibberish in a rapid tone.

I laughed. "Oh, Morris," I said, "how your thoughts do run on love and lovers! Now let's think of something else."

"There's nothing else for a young maiden to think of in the spring time," said Morris, in oracular tones.

"There is in my case," I replied. "We will buy some fresh violets to-day, for one thing."

"Shall we get them, miss, when we are going into the Park, or when we are coming out?"

"I want to sit just where I sat yesterday," I answered; "and while I am there you can buy them, as you did yesterday."

"Oh, yes, miss; I quite understand," replied Morris. Then she added: "It must be nice, very nice, to be married, and to be very rich. But it must be lovely to be married when you care for the man with all your heart, and he is poor, very poor. I'm not meaning anything special, miss, but it's the spring time, and, as the poet says, it makes my fancy 'lightly turn to thoughts of love.'"

I made no reply. I had planned my visit to the Park so that it should take place almost precisely at eleven o'clock, and when I got to the neighbourhood of the seats where Morris and I had rested yesterday, I perceived that one of them was occupied by a tall young man in a morning suit of dark grey tweed. The moment he saw me he started to his feet, and I turned quickly to Morris.

"Go, Morris," I said, "and buy violets--three s.h.i.+llingsworth, please, and get as many white violets as ever you can."

"And shall I meet you inside the gates, miss?" asked the discreet Morris.

"Yes," I answered; "go at once."

She turned on her heel, tripping away through the long vista of trees without once looking back. Captain Carbury came eagerly forward. He held out his strong hand, and took one of mine; he held my hand very tightly.

I sat down--I felt my breath coming fast. I had thought of this hour ever since I had last parted with him, and now that it had come I found that I had not in my imagination, even for one moment, believed that it was half as good as it proved to be.

"Won't you look at me, Heather?" he said, and he bent down and tried to peep at my eyes from under my shady hat. I raised them just for a minute.

"Is it right to meet you like this?" I said.

"You need never meet me like this again," he said. "You have only to say 'Yes' to my request, and you and I together will go straight back to Hanbury Square, and I myself will ring the bell at Number 13, and we will ask for an interview with your father, and afterwards I shall be free to come to the house during the brief time we are engaged. For, oh, darling! we must be married very, very soon."

"But I never promised to marry you," I answered.

"Oh, Heather!" was his reply. He bent forward and looked into my eyes.

"I never, never did," I said, shaking my head, and trying to avoid his eyes.

"You certainly did not yesterday," was his answer then. "I don't know that I even wanted you to, but when you came to me to-day I saw 'Yes'

written all over your face. You cannot deny it--you are mine, mine only; you would give up every other man in the wide world just for me."

I tried very hard to reply; I tried to tell him that he was impertinent and vain, but the words would not rise to my lips. On the contrary, I had the utmost possible difficulty in keeping myself from bursting into tears, for I knew well that I loved him, if not yesterday, most certainly to-day. There was something about him which appealed to my whole heart, to which my heart went out. Still, I sat silent, declining to speak--perfectly happy, perfectly contented, afraid to break my bliss by the uttering of a single word.

As I sat so, with my shoulder within an inch or two of his, I began to consider the violets, just as though he had given them to me. I had bought those violets yesterday, and they were full of him; I had brought some back with me to the Park to-day, but they were already slightly faded. Not that our hopes were faded--far from that--only the violets. I considered the violets--his special flowers--just as though he had plucked them and given them to me; they seemed to be mixed up with him, and I believed that all my life long I should love with a tender sort of pa.s.sion the smell of violets, and hate, beyond all words, the smell of roses, and in particular of white roses.

"What are you thinking about, Heather?" he asked.

"Of you," I answered.

He glanced around him to right and left.

"There is no one looking," he said, drawing his chair two or three inches nearer; "may I--may I hold your hand?"

"I cannot help it," I replied, and I spoke in a low, uncertain manner.

He smiled, took my hand, and held it very tightly between both his own.

"You have a very little hand, Heather," was his remark, and he held it yet tighter.

"You are squeezing it," I said; "you are quite hurting me."

"That is the last thing I would do," was his reply. He loosened the pressure of his hand over mine the merest fragment. After a minute of silence, he said:

"Of course, as you allow me to hold your hand, things must be all right."

"I--I am not sure," I answered.

"But I mean that you are willing that I should arrange this thing, take all the trouble off you, you understand. You are willing, quite willing, that we shall be married as soon as ever I can arrange it?"

"But this time yesterday," I replied, "I hardly thought about you. I certainly knew that I liked you, and that you were my friend. I little guessed, however, this time yesterday, that we could ever, by any possibility, be husband and wife."

I flushed crimson as I said the words, and looked down.

"But now, Heather--now--you are willing that we should be married if I can arrange it?"

"I hardly thought of you this time yesterday," I said again.

"But since that time yesterday, Heather?"

"I have thought of no one else," I said. Then I coloured crimson, wrenched my hand away, and covered my face.

"Come," he said, rising at once; "that's all right; that's as right as anything in all the world could be. Little Heather, little darling, we were made for each other. I felt certain of it the very first day I saw you. You came into my life, and by the witchery of your fresh and beautiful character you turned the great Lady Dorothy out! Not that at any time I really cared for her, compared to you! We met, and immediately into my picture gallery you went, and into your picture gallery I went. Oh, of course, we were made for each other! Now, shall we go, or that servant of yours will be returning. We will go straight to Major Grayson and get his consent."

"But suppose he doesn't give it?" I said; and I trembled very much as this fear struck me.

"You must leave all that to me, Heather; I think I can manage. And, darling, we won't have a long engagement. We'll be married almost immediately."

"I thought people were usually engaged about two years," I said.

"But you and I will not conform to the usual standard," was his reply.