Comin' Thro' the Rye (Mathers)/Summer/Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI.
From flowery tenderness?"
"Nell! Nell!" cries the Bull of Basan, rushing headlong into my room, "come down, quick! The governor is chasing Larry?"
Anything more exciting than a race between papa and one of his offspring could not well be imagined. So I fly downstairs in Basan's wake, as eager for the fray as himself. It appears that five minutes ago the governor discovered Larry—aged eleven—seated in the kitchen, on a three-legged stool, eating bread and cheese; and, of course, made a dash at him as a terrier does at a neighbour's cat. But Larry, instead of dutifully yielding himself up to condign punishment, showed a most unexpected spirit, dropped his eatables and bolted out of the back kitchen door, and into a paved walk that runs parallel with the kitchen windows, and about as bad a place as he could well get into, for the only outlet from it is by an entrance to the house higher up, or a return to the same through the kitchen door. The governor is well aware of this fact, and instead of giving a straight chase after the culprit, gravitates between the staircase and the back kitchen, Larry outside, he in; pursuer and pursued plainly visible to each other through the windows. When I arrive upon the scene I find papa, his face purple with rage and amazement, doubling, dodging swearing, dancing; I see a pale but obstinate little face peeping in at the window, and then shooting back; I see the youngsters posted about, evidently divided between delight at Larry's pluck and awful speculations as to his probable fate, one or two servants looking on, who are too much alarmed to offer the assistance the governor thinks it beneath his dignity to ask, though I am much mistaken if a certain hem! from Bridget, the cook, does not warn Larry of his danger, when his gentle parent nearly catches him round the water-butt outside the back door. Father and son are so well matched in agility and acuteness, that it seems as unlikely Larry will be caught as that the governor will permit him to escape. Unhappy Larry! he must have been mad to begin the contest. What would his sin of eating bread and cheese at eleven o'clock in the morning have been compared with leading the governor this impious dance? No doubt he knows his foolhardiness by now, and repents him of it. But, perhaps, he reflects that life is sweet, and the longer he can put off the evil hour of being caught, the better, so he doubles and dodges with renewed vigour.
"What is the matter?" asks mother, coming in, and glancing with amazement from papa's infuriated countenance to that of her miserable son, who is just peeping in with a ludicrous mixture of fear and bravado on his small face.
"Do you see that little devil, madam?" asks my father. "Do you know that he has been dodging me, me, for the last two hours? (Ten minutes he mean.) I'll break every bone in his skin when I catch him! and not one of these boobies (he points to us all standing about) can put out a hand to stop him! Stand at the foot of the staircase, and hold on to him when he comes past. Do you hear?"
And off he dashes through the kitchen, and round the water-butt this time. Poor mother, she is in a quandary! She is as utterly incapable of delivering the least deserving of her children up to the slaughter, as she is of disobeying her lord. So she meekly takes up her position where she was bid, and when Larry comes pelting in at the door, and hits her a smart blow with his head "below the belt," she puts out no detaining hand, but subsides into a comfortable heap on the mat; while the governor, entering in hot pursuit, catches his foot in her petticoats, and turns an energetic somersault over her prostrate form! Tableau vivant! One can scarcely look on such sacrilege and live, so I retire upstairs precipitately in search of Larry, who, evidently not valuing his life at a brass farthing, if he remain under the roof that shelters his parent, has escaped by some upper window and got away. In the midst of the wrathful clamour below, comes a shrill tinkle from our rusty front door bell, and straightway papa retires to the library, and is plainly audible to something more than the ear of faith, taking it out of the furniture.
"It is only Tempest," says Basan, who has followed me, peeping round the big leaves of the magnolia tree that clothes the outside of our house with glossy green in winter, and creamy, fainting flower-cups in summer.
"Only George! It could not well be much more!" I say.
"He looks so queer," says Basan, stretching his neck again. "He has on a long grey overcoat and a boxer; and his face is as long as my arm."
"Does he look as though he were going away?" I ask anxiously. "Does he look as though he had come to say good-bye?" then, recollecting myself, "Go downstairs, there's a good Basan, and make as much noise as you can, so as to drown the row the governor is making!"
I have been "fetched" twice, and now I am standing outside the drawing-room with my hand on the knob of the door, fearing to turn it. A crash of amazing magnitude from the library hardby suggests the desirability of my immediately hiding somewhere, so I enter the room with some haste to find George standing with his back to me, stooping over something that instinct tells me is a little ugly, disreputable photograph that the sun and a Silverbridge photographer worked between them to my eternal discredit. He has on a travelling coat, just as Basan said; and there is about him that brushed up, stiff, touch-me-not air that Englishmen mostly put on when they go abroad, and take off when they stay at home. He turns at the sound of my steps, and comes to meet
"May I have this, Nell?" he asks, holding up the poor little picture.
"It is mother's," I say, gently; "but I dare say she would let you have it. It was only yesterday papa said that if he found any more of his daughter's likenesses littering up the mantelpiece, he would put them all in the fire!"
He does not join in my uneasy laugh, and we stand side by side looking out at the gay dahlia beds, whose gorgeous colours will ere long be nipped and dulled by the chill night frosts. I have looked at him once, and then turned my eyes away. In all my misery at Luttrell did I ever look for one single hour like that?
"You will guess why I am here, Nell," he says. "I have come to say good-bye to you for a time."
And it was only yesterday that I was selfishly wishing he would take himself and his disappointments away out of my sight; well, to-day I have my wish.
"You will come back soon?" I ask, wistfully. "You will not stay away long?"
"I shall come back," he says quietly. "There is my father to be considered, you know."
"Promise me one thing," he says, turning his haggard face away, "that you will be married before I come back."
"Married!" I repeat. "Oh, George! and it was only yesterday that I told you—I have not thought about such a thing!"
"But Vasher will. How came you to suppose he did not love you?"
"It was all a mistake!"
"When I met you last night," he says, slowly, "I was picturing you with a heart as wild and unsatisfied as my own; I was thinking that I would bear twice my own burden if I could but lift some of the trouble from your weak shoulders, and all at once something stood in my path, I looked up and saw your face, Nell, passionate, tender, transfigured, with a look upon it that had never through all these years grown under word of mine, and almost before I looked at the man by your side, I knew, Nell, I knew. . . . When I come back I shall find it easier, please God. After all," he says, with an attempt at cheerfulness that does not deceive me, "it is only now; it will not be so hard after a bit. But I did not come here to whine over my misfortunes. Good-bye, dear." He holds out his hand, and I put mine in his without a word, without a tear, and so we look hard at each other's pallid faces, for a moment, then—"God bless you!" he says. God bless you!" I echo, and he is gone.
When the door has closed, I sit down on the floor, and heedless of the fact that tears are a thrice-forbidden luxury in the house of Adair, cry long and bitterly, with no sneaking reservations as to quantity, quality, or the state of my appearance after it. Bitter and sweet, sweet and bitter, how have you not been mingled in my cup yesterday and to-day! and there should be only sweets in these my early, freshest days of happy, assured love. Perhaps this heavy-heartedness about George will wear away after a while, but just now my thoughts seem to go out more constantly to the lover who has gone away from me, than to him with whom I shall be face to face in a few hours' time; nay, in my keen burst of sorrow for George's misery, I can find it in my heart to wish it was to-morrow, not to-day, I was going to see Paul. And the hours slip away so quickly, four o'clock has even struck, and I am still standing before my looking-glass, gazing blankly at my puffy eyelids and red nose. It is quite certain that Mr. Paul will discover that he has made a shockingly bad bargain, for he does not strike me as being a man likely to look at his lady-love through rose-coloured spectacles—not but what that has its advantages, though, for when a man like that pays a compliment, he means it, and he has paid me one or two lovely ones. By the time my foot on the first stair, the smiles have come back to my mouth, the gladness to my heart; is not my lover waiting for me? am I not going to him now, this minute?
All along the garden and orchard go with hurrying steps. The convolvuli, hanging their marble vases over the hedge, blow out their faintly scented welcome to me as I pass; the pale bramble blossom hanging on the bough whispers, "He is waiting! he is waiting!" the brook, as it hastens along, mutters, "Time is short, do not linger!" and very soon I have reached the trysting-place, where he stands erect, impatient, watch in hand.
"How late you are!" he says; then, holding me away from him to look into my face, "Why, little one, you have been crying!"
"Yes," I say, rubbing my cheek against his hand, and feeling that now I am here it does not much matter whether I begin to cry again or laugh; by his side all is well with me.
"Who has been vexing you?” he asks, with an unamiable frown.
"No one! It is about George."
"George," he repeats, and his arms slacken their hold upon me; "why, this is the second time within the last twenty-four hours that you have been crying over Tempest! You must have liked him very much!"
"I did like him," I answer stoutly. "I do! He is the truest, noblest, most unselfish lover a girl ever had, only——— (I lift my eyes to Paul's jealous face) I like you best!"
"Do you, indeed?" he asks, with a queer upward twist of his brows. "And have you no such word in your vocabulary as love?"
"Perhaps."
"At any rate you are quite sure that you do like me?"
"Quite sure, Mr. Paul Vasher; quite sure!"
Here our conversation becomes indistinct and ridiculous. And in our little green parlour leave us, oh reader! to our idiocy, and cast your memory back to the days when you loved and were beloved, and your happiness was but freshly born to you; remembering that time, you will, while smiling at our folly, understand it. . . .