Aunt Rachel Part 14

the place on it."

"That will end in talk," said Reuben, with a half-defiant, half-scrutinizing look at Ferdinand, as if he charged him in his own mind with having suggested the barbarism.

"There is no danger that it will go further in the vicar's time," returned Ferdinand. "Besides, his lords.h.i.+p is as strongly opposed to the change as anybody."

"It's time we was movin' inside, lads," said Fuller, glancing up at the church clock. Ruth inclined her head to Ferdinand, gave a nod and a smile to Reuben (who nodded back rather gloomily), and pa.s.sed like a sunbeam into the shadow of the porch. Fuller took up his 'cello in a big armful, and followed, with the brethren in his rear. Ferdinand, feeling Reuben's company to be distasteful, lingered in it with a perverse hope that the young man might address him, and Reuben stood rather sullenly by to mark his own sense of social contrast by allowing the gentleman to enter first.

Each being disappointed by the other's immobility and quiet, a gradual sense of awkwardness grew up between them, and this was becoming acute when Ezra appeared, and afforded a diversion. Under cover of his uncle's arrival Reuben escaped into the church.

In the course of centuries the church-yard had grown so high about the building that gra.s.s waved on a level with the sills of the lower windows, and the church was entered by a small flight of downward steps.

The band and choir had a little bare back gallery to themselves, and approached it by a narrow spiral stone staircase. There were no side galleries, and band and choir had therefore an uninterrupted survey of the building. Reuben valued his place because it gave him a constant sight of Ruth, and perhaps, though the fancy is certain of condemnation at the hands of some of the severer sort, the visible presence of the maiden, for whose sake he hoped for all possible excellences in himself, was no bad aid to devotion. She sat in a broad band of tinted sunlight with her profile towards her lover, looking to his natural fancy as if she caused the sunlight, and were its heart and centre. Opposite to her and with _his_ profile towards the music gallery also, sat Ferdinand, and Reuben saw the young gentleman cast many glances across the church in Ruth's direction. This spectacle afforded no aid to devotion, and not even his music could draw the mind or eyes of the lover from Ferdinand, whom he began to regard as being an open rival.

There was enough in this reflection to spur the most laggard of admirers into definite action, and before the service was over Reuben had made up his mind. He would speak to Ruth after church, and at least decide his own chances. The vicar's sermon was brief, for the good man had no rival, and could afford to please himself; but its duration, short as it was, gave Reuben ample time to be rejected and accepted a score of times over, and to gild the future with the rosiest or cloud it with the most tempestuous of colors. The Earl of Barfield, according to his custom, had arrived late, and it comforted Reuben a little to think that in his presence, at all events, the young gentleman could make no progress with his love affairs. It comforted him further to see that Ruth took no notice of the glances of her admirer, and that she was to all appearance unconscious of them and of him.

But when once he had made up his mind to instant action, the vicar's brief discourse began to drag itself into supernatural length. Facing the preacher, and immediately beneath Reuben's feet, was a clock of old-fas.h.i.+oned and clumsy structure, and the measured tick, tick of its machinery communicated a faintly perceptible jar to a square foot or so of the gallery flooring. The mechanical rhythm got into Reuben's brain and nerves until every second seemed to hang fire for a phenomenal time, and the twenty minutes' discourse dragged into an age. Even when the vicar at last lifted his eyes from the neatly ranged papers which lay on the pulpit cus.h.i.+on before him, laid down his gla.s.ses, and without pause or change of voice pa.s.sed on to the benediction, and even when after the customary decent pause the outward movement of the congregation began, Reuben's impatience had still to be controlled, for it was the duty of the band to play a solemn selection from the works of some old master while the people filed away. Reuben led, and since the others must needs follow at the pace he set, the old master was led to a giddier step than he had ever danced to in a church before. Sennacherib was scandalized, and even the mild Fuller was conscious of an inward rebellion. The taste in Heydon Hay was rather in favor of drawl than chatter, and the old masters in their serious moods were accustomed to be taken with something more than leisure.

"Why, Reuben, lad," began Sennacherib, "how didst come to let your hand run away with your elber i' that way?"

But Reuben, sticking his hat on anyhow, was gone before the old man had finished his question, thrusting his violin into its case as he made his way down the corkscrew stairs. A single glance a.s.sured him that Ruth was no longer in the churchyard. The Earl of Barfield's carriage blocked the way at the lich-gate, and the young fellow waited in high impatience until the obstacle should disappear. His lords.h.i.+p, in view of the approaching election, was much more amiable and talkative than common, and he and his protege stood exchanging talk upon indifferent topics with a little crowd of church-goers, but in a while the earl climbed slowly into the carriage. Ferdinand skipped nimbly after him and the two were driven away. Reuben, with hasty nods and good-mornings at one or two who would have detained him, strode into the highway just in time to see the dove-colored dress turn at a distant corner. He hurried after it at his swiftest walk, and reaching the corner in the most evident violent hurry, narrowly escaped walking over the object of the chase, who had halted in talk with Aunt Rachel at the place where their homeward ways divided.

He had expected to find her still far ahead, and this sudden encounter was amazingly disconcerting to him. To begin with, apart from his real purpose he had no business whatsoever round that particular corner. Then to pause suddenly in the midst of so violent a hurry was in itself a plain proclamation of his intent, and his hot courage had so rapidly gone cold that the change of inward temperature carried a shock with it.

Nevertheless, he stopped and stammered a disjointed greeting to Rachel, who returned for sole answer an icy little nod, pinching her lips together somewhat superciliously as she gave it.

Ruth, who would have been burdened by a shyness equalling Reuben's own had he succeeded in catching her by herself, was bold enough in the presence of one of her own s.e.x, and observed the situation with a delighted mischief. But this was changed, as swiftly as Reuben's emotions themselves, to a state of freezing discomfort when Aunt Rachel bolt upright, and with a mincing precision in her speech, demanded to know if this young--ahem!--this person had any communication to make.

"My dear aunt," said the poor girl, blus.h.i.+ng scarlet, and casting an appealing glance at Reuben.

"You appeared to be in a hurry, Mr. Gold," said the terrible old lady.

"My niece and I will not detain you."

"Thank you," responded Reuben, shaken back into self-possession. "I am not in a hurry any longer."

Aunt Rachel turned right about face with an almost military precision, and pa.s.sing her arm through Ruth's led the girl away, leaving Reuben shaken back into internal chaos. Ruth's blus.h.i.+ng face and humid brown eyes were turned towards him in momentary but keen apology, and he was left standing alone on the cobbled pavement with a feeling of perfect wreck.

"Aunt Rachel!" said the girl, as she suffered herself thus ignominiously to be towed away. "How could you make me behave so rudely?"

"Have nothing to do with those people," replied Aunt Rachel, frigidly.

"They are bad, root and branch. I know them, my dear. That young man has the audacity to admire you. You must not encourage him."

"I am sure," said Ruth, guiltily, only half knowing what she said, "he has never spoken a word--"

"It is not necessary to wait for words," returned the old lady. "I can see quite clearly. I am experienced. I know the Golds. I have been familiar with the method of their villany for many years."

"How can you speak so?" the girl asked, recovering something of her native spirit. "I am sure that there is no better man in the world than Mr. Ezra Gold. Everybody speaks well of him."

"It is not quite accurate, my dear," said Aunt Rachel, "to say that everybody speaks well of him, when a person even so inconsiderable as myself is in the act of speaking ill of him." The quaint veneer of fas.h.i.+on with which for many years she had overlaid her speech and manner was more apparent in this address than common, but suddenly she broke through it and spoke with an approach to pa.s.sion. "I know them; they are villains. Have nothing to do with any member of that family, my dear, as you value your happiness." She pinched her niece's arm tightly as she spoke, and for a little time they walked on in silence, Ruth not knowing what to say in answer to this outburst, but by no means convinced as yet of the villany either of Ezra or Reuben. "Now, my dear," Aunt Rachel began again, with a return to her customary mincing tones, "you are not far from your own residence. I observe," with a swift glance over her shoulder, "that the person still lingers at the corner. But if he should attempt to follow you may rely upon me to intercept him. My niece must act like my niece. You must show your detestation of his odious advances in a proper manner."

"But, Aunt Rachel!" protested Ruth, "he has never made any advances, and I--I haven't any detestation."

"All in good time, my dear," responded the old lady. "In the mean time, rely upon my protection." With this she stood up birdlike, and pecked affectionately at Ruth's rosy cheek. The girl was well-nigh crying, but restrained herself, and answered Rachel's "G.o.d bless you"

with some self-possession.

"Good-morning, dear aunt. But you are quite, oh, quite mistaken."

"Indeed, my dear," said Aunt Rachel, with a glitter in her youthful eyes, and a compression of her mobile lips, "I am nothing of the kind." Ruth's eyes sank, and she blushed before the old lady's keen and triumphant smile. She moved away downcast, while Aunt Rachel took the opposite direction. The old lady wore a determined air which changed to a sparkling triumph as she saw Reuben cross the road with an inelastic step, and continue his homeward way with a head bent either in thought or dejection.

CHAPTER X.

When Reuben found time to gather himself together and to face his own emotions he discovered himself to be more amazed than disconcerted. He cast about in his mind for an explanation of the old lady's displeasure, and found none. Why should she desire to insult him? In what possible way could he have offended her? Even a lover (ingenious as lovers always are in the art of self-torment) could not persuade himself that Ruth was a willing party to her aunt's singular treatment of him. The apology in her glance had been unmistakable.

He was altogether at a loss to understand in what way he could have excited Miss Blythe's anger, but it was unpleasant to know that there was an enemy in the camp which he had always thought entirely friendly.

With the exception of Ruth herself he had been sure of the approval of everybody concerned.

His performance at the homely one o'clock dinner spread at his mother's table was so poor as to be noticeable, and he had to endure and answer many tender but unnecessary inquiries as to the state of his health, and to pretend to listen while his mother related the melancholy history of a young man who fell into a decline and died through mere neglect of meal-times. When this narrative was over and done with he escaped to his own room, carrying writing materials with him, and sat down to express on paper the hopes he had fully meant to express vocally an hour earlier. The golden rule for writing is to know precisely what you want to say, but though Reuben seemed to know, he found it hard to get upon paper. Half a score of torn sheets went into the fire-grate, and were there carefully fired and reduced to ashes. It was only the discovery that he was reduced to his final sheet of paper which really screwed his courage to the sticking-point. Being once there it held until the need for it was over; but when the letter was written it would have followed its forerunners if there had but been another sheet of paper in the house or the day had been anything but Sunday. As it was, he let it stand perforce, enveloped and addressed it in a sort of desperation, and put it in his pocket ready for personal delivery. The quartette party always met on Sunday afternoons and played sacred music. Not so long ago they had been used to meet in church; but since the introduction of gas to the venerable building the afternoon service had been abandoned and an evening service inst.i.tuted in its stead. The music-parties were held at Fuller's in the summer-time, and Reuben's chance of a declaration by letter looked simple and easy enough. It was but to slip the all-important note into Ruth's hand with a pet.i.tion to her to read it, and the thing was done. He had time enough to do this over and over and over again in fancy as he walked down the sunlit street with his violin case tucked under his arm. He had time enough to be accepted and rejected just as often--to picture and enjoy the rapture of the one event and the misery and life-long loneliness entailed by the other.

Every time his eager fancy slipped the note into Ruth's fingers his heart leaped and his hands went hot and moist, but if ever the screw of courage gave a backward turn the thought of Ferdinand twisted it back to the sticking-point again, and he was all resolve once more. The experience of ages has declared that there is no better spur for the halting paces of a laggard lover than that which is supplied by jealousy. The simplest coquette that ever tortured hearts in a hay-field is aware of the fact, and needs no appeal to the experience of ages to support her.

Reuben pushed the green gate aside, and entering upon the lawn, found Fuller in the act of carrying the table to its customary place. He had been so free of the house, and had been for years so accustomed to enter it and leave it at his will, that there was nothing in the world but his own restraining sense of shyness to prevent him from walking past his host with the merest salutation and fulfilling his own purpose then and there. But the trouble was that to his own disturbed feeling Fuller would infallibly have guessed his purpose, and either of the other members of the quartette arriving, or any chance visitor strolling in, would have known in a moment that he could have no other reason for entering the house than to ask Ruth's hand in marriage. So he stood somewhat awkwardly by the table, while Fuller re-entered the house and, after a little pause, returned with a pile of music.

"This here's one of Ezra's books, I reckon," said the elder, singling one volume from the pile. "It's the one you browt here the day he gi'en you his libery."

"Ah!" said Reuben, "Manzini? That was the last music he opened for his own playing, so he told me." He fluttered the leaves, glancing towards the house meanwhile, but seeing nothing of his G.o.ddess. Fuller contented himself with a mere grunt in answer to Reuben's statement, and rolled off into the house once more, returning this time with his 'cello. He propped the instrument tenderly against the table, and, seating himself near it, began to arrange the music. Reuben still stood awkwardly fingering the leaves of Manzini's duets, when Ruth appeared at the house door. He had made but a step towards her, and had not even made a step in his mind towards reading the half-shy, half-appealing aspect she wore, when the prim figure of Aunt Rachel appeared from behind her, and the old woman, with defiance expressed in every line and gesture, laid her mit-tened hand on the girl's arm and advanced by her side. Reuben stood arrested, and made a bow which he felt to be altogether awkward.

Ruth's brown eyes drooped, and she blushed, but she found courage a second or two later for a glance of appeal which Reuben did not see. He offered chairs to the old woman and the young one as they came near him, but Rachel, with a stony little nod, walked by, taking her niece with her.

The young man took instant counsel with himself. He sat down near the table with Manzini's oblong folio in his lap, and, turning the pages here and there, selected a moment when he was un.o.bserved, and slipped his missive between the front board of the binding and the first blank leaf. It would be strange if he could not find time to whisper, "Look in Manzini" before the day was over; and even if that course should fail he could at least forward his letter by the penny-post, though that would imply a delay of twelve hours, and was hardly tolerable to think of. If he missed the opportunity for that hasty whisper he would carry Manzini away, and so re-secure possession of his letter.

While he was planning thus, Rachel and her niece were walking up and down the gra.s.s-plot, and the old lady was talking away at a great rate, describing the glories of the house of Lady De Blacquaire, and affecting to be absorbed in her theme. She was not so much absorbed, however, that her manner did not clearly indicate her misliking sense of Reuben's nearness every time she pa.s.sed him, though she did not so much as cast a glance in his direction. By-and-by the two Elds appeared, and the customary business of the afternoon began. Reuben had much ado to pin himself down to the music, but he succeeded fairly well, and gave n.o.body reason to suppose that his mind wandered far and often from his task. It was well for his repute for sanity, especially after the wild leaders.h.i.+p at morning service, that he was familiar with the theme. Even when his thoughts wandered farthest he was mechanically accurate. All the time the book with the all-important missive in it lay on the table before him, and in his fancy disasters were constantly happening which revealed his secret. He repeated the terms of the note again and again, and added to it and altered it and resolved to rewrite it, and again resolved to leave it as it was.

The afternoon party received an unusual addition in the persons of Mrs. Sennacherib and Mrs. Isaiah, who arrived when the performers were half-way through their programme.

"I forgot to tell thee, Reuben, lad," said Fuller, "Ruth's got a bit of a tay-party this afternoon, and thee beest to stop with the rest on 'em."

"Thank you," said Reuben; "I shall stay with pleasure." He felt Rachel's disapproving glance upon him, and looking up met it for a moment, and returned it with a puzzled gravity. She was standing alone at a little distance from the table, and Ruth and the two new arrivals were in the act of entering the house. Reuben obeyed the impulse which moved him, and rising from his place crossed over to where the little old lady stood. "May I ask," he said, "how I came to fall under your displeasure, Miss Blythe?" He glanced over his shoulder to a.s.sure himself that n.o.body took especial note of him, and spoke in a low and guarded voice.

Miss Blythe made the most of her small figure, glanced with extreme deliberation from his eyes to his boots and back again, and, turning away, followed her niece and the two new arrivals, walking with an air of exaggerated dignity. Reuben, returning to his seat, had to make great play with his pocket-handkerchief to cover the signs of confusion which arose at this rebuff. Miss Blythe could scarcely have expressed a livelier contempt for him if he had been a convicted pick-pocket.

His share of the music went so ill after this that he excited something like consternation in the minds of his friends.

"What's come to the lad, 'Saiah," asked Sennacherib.

"Bist a bit out o' sorts, Reuben, bisent?" said Isaiah, mildly anxious.

"I can't play to-day," Reuben answered, almost fretfully. "Let us try again. No. There's nothing the matter. Nothing in the world. Let us try again."

They tried again, and by dint of great effort Reuben kept control over himself and escaped further disgrace, although at one time Ruth's sympathetic, shy look almost broke him down, and at another, Rachel's stony gaze so filled him with wonderment and anger that he had much ado to save himself from falling.

Ruth retired to superintend the preparation of the tea-table within-doors, and Rachel followed her. In their absence he got on better, but it was almost as great a relief as he had ever known to find that the concert at last was over, and that he could give unrestrained attention to the thoughts which pressed upon him.