Books: Herb of Grace

R >> Rosa Nouchette Carey >> Herb of Grace

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30

"Indeed," returned Malcolm drily; "if you will pardon my speaking
plainly, Mr. Jacobi, I do not think the Misses Templeton's business
affairs are any concern of ours, and I would prefer to talk on any
other subject."

This was too manifest a hint to be disregarded even by the
irrepressible Jacobi; but the next minute Malcolm added, "Will you
excuse my leaving you, I see some old friends of mine on their way
to the Pool, and they will expect me to join them;" but if Malcolm
intended to do so, he chose a most circuitous route.

"Rum chap that," observed Saul Jacobi, turning on his heel--"not
easy to get any information out of him; looks as though he had
swallowed the poker first, and then the tongs as a sort of relish
afterwards, and neither of them agreed with him. I wonder what young
Templeton saw in him. He lays it on pretty thick too: it is Herrick
this and Herrick that, as though he were Solomon in all his glory.
Confound his airs and impudence! Let me tell you, my young
gentleman," with a sly smile, "that the Misses Templeton's private
business is a matter that concerns Saul Jacobi pretty closely."

Meanwhile Malcolm was in a white heat of righteous indignation.

"That wretched little cad, how dare he meddle and pry into the
Misses Templeton's family affairs! There is something I mistrust in
the man; he is smooth and plausible, but he is crafty too; he is
deep--deep--and if I do not mistake, he is clever too."

Then he added, "I must get hold of Cedric; I am not comfortable at
his associating with this man. Cedric is as weak as water; he is so
easily led, he would be the dupe of any designing person; but the
Jacobis will have to reckon with me;" and here Malcolm, who had
uttered the last words aloud, stopped and looked rather foolish, as
a merry laugh greeted his ear, and Elizabeth, in all the glory of
her Paris gown and picture hat, barred the way, and regarded him
with her beaming smile.

"Mr. Herrick, you are quite dramatic; Hamlet or the melancholy
Jacques could not have been more lost in gloomy meditation. If I may
presume to ask the question, why will the Jacobis have to reckon
with you?"

"Did I say so?" returned Malcolm, with an uneasy laugh. "I suppose I
was thinking aloud. That fellow Jacobi has been rubbing me up the
wrong way; he stuck to me like a burr, and I could not get rid of
him."

"I had some trouble in shaking him off myself," she owned. "You were
quite right, Mr. Herrick, he is not a gentleman, and I dislike his
manner excessively; it is too subservient, and he is too soft-
tongued. Poor dear Die, I wish you could have seen her face when he
paid her a compliment; she looked quite bewildered."

Elizabeth's eyes were dancing with amusement at the recollection,
but Malcolm did not respond to her merriment; he felt things were
too serious.

"I am not at all easy in my mind," he said, and then Elizabeth
looked at him inquiringly. "Jacobi seems to have got a hold on
Cedric. He goes back with him to-night, does he not? Ah, I thought
so," as Elizabeth nodded. "I must have some talk with him; I shall
tell him that I disapprove of the Jacobis, and shall beg him to
break off the acquaintance."

"Oh, thank you--thank you!" returned Elizabeth earnestly, and there
was a beautiful colour in her face; she even held out her hand
impulsively to him, as though her gratitude carried her away. "How
good you are to us--a real friend to two lone, lorn women!" and here
something twinkled in Elizabeth's eyes; but perhaps she was a little
taken aback when Malcolm very quietly and reverently raised the hand
to his lips, as though he were vowing knightly service to his liege
lady.

"I should ask nothing better than to be your friend," he said in a
low voice; but perhaps something in her manner checked him, for he
added hastily, "and your sister's too."

It was rather a lame conclusion, but Elizabeth accepted it
graciously. "I shall rely on you to help us," she said very
seriously; "get him to break with the Jacobis, and Dinah and I will
owe you a debt of gratitude."

"Hush! please do not mention names," whispered Malcolm; "some one
might overhear us;" but he was too late, Elizabeth's incautious
speech had reached an unseen auditor.

Malcolm felt a little ashamed of himself when he remembered his
impulsive action. "She will think it so strange," he thought; "she
will not understand that it was only the outward and visible sign of
my inward reverence." But he was wrong, Elizabeth did understand,
and she did not misjudge him.

"He is a high-minded gentleman," she said to herself; and then she
sighed and her face grew troubled, "but I wish--I wish he had not
done that."

Malcolm found his work cut out for him; for the remainder of the
afternoon he was hunting his quarry. But Cedric was never alone. He
was either surrounded by a bevy of girls or else Jacobi was beside
him. Even Cedric seemed surprised at the tenacity with which his
friend and host stuck to him.

"Herrick wants me," he said once; "I will come back to you right
enough, old fellow;" but Jacobi still pinioned him.

"We will go together, my dear boy," he said pleasantly. "I have
taken a fancy to your Mentor. He seems a clever chap. He is a
barrister, isn't he, and literary, and all that sort of thing?"

"I have told you about him often enough," returned Cedric, in rather
a surly tone, as though the iron hand under the velvet glove made
itself evident. Cedric felt he was being managed and coerced, and he
waxed indignant; but Saul Jacobi was more than a match for him, and
in spite of all Malcolm's efforts, Cedric went back to Henley
without a word of warning.

Malcolm was quite troubled and crestfallen over his failure.

"I did my best," he said to Elizabeth; "I followed him about the
whole afternoon, but that fellow stuck to him like a leech."

"So I saw," she returned rather sadly; "it was no fault of yours,
Mr. Herrick, I am quite sure of that. Well, we must find some other
opportunity." And then Elizabeth smiled at him very kindly, and
Malcolm went back to the Crow's Nest feeling somewhat comforted.

CHAPTER XXIII

SAINT ELIZABETH!

Love lies deeper than all words;
And not the spoken but the speechless love
Waits answer, ere I rise and go my way.
--BROWNING.

When in after-years Malcolm Herrick reviewed this portion of his
life, he owned to himself that during the five weeks that followed
the Templeton Bean-feast he had lived in a fool's paradise--in a
state of beatitude that was as unsubstantial and fleeting as the
sunset clouds that piled themselves behind the fir woods.

He was very happy, almost pathetically so, and the new wine of youth
seemed coursing through his veins. "This is life," he would say to
himself; "I have only existed before, but now I am reborn into a new
world, and I have learned the secret of all the ages."

Every day his passion for Elizabeth Templeton increased, and the
charm and sweetness of her personality attracted him more
powerfully. He had never seen any one like her; she was so full of
surprises, her nature was so rich, so original, and yet so womanly,
that the man whom she blessed with her love could never have grown
weary of her society. Without an effort, simply by being herself, a
truthful, noble-hearted woman, she had dominated his strong nature
and brought him to her feet. Was she conscious of his devotion? This
was a question that Malcolm vainly tried to answer, but her manner
perplexed and baffled him. She was always kind and friendly, and her
cordial welcome never varied, but Malcolm could not flatter himself
that he received any special encouragement, or that she regarded him
in any other light than a trusted and valued friend. Now and then,
when he found himself alone with her, he fancied her manner had
changed--that she had become quiet and reserved, as though she were
not at her ease with him. Was it only his imagination, he wondered,
that she seemed trying to keep him at a distance, as though she were
afraid of him? But such was his blindness and infatuation that he
drew encouragement even from this.

To Malcolm those summer days were simply perfect. His morning hours
were devoted to his literary work, and the essays were taking shape
and form under his hand. Never had his brain been clearer; he worked
with a facility that surprised himself. "I am inspired," he would
whisper; "I have a patron saint of my own now," and he would tell
himself that no name could be so sweet to him as Elizabeth. He would
murmur it half-aloud as he wandered in the woodlands in the
gloaming--"Elizabeth, Elizabeth"--and once as he said it, something
seemed to rise in his throat and choke him.

He had not forgotten Anna; he had never forgotten her in his life,
for his adopted sister was very dear to him.

Every week he wrote to his mother and also to her--pleasant, chatty
letters, full of affection and warm with brotherly kindness. If Anna
ever shed tears over them he never knew it.

With what touching humility she acknowledged his thoughtfulness!

"Another letter--how good you are to me!" she would say in her
reply. "Mother declares that you spoil me. I read her all your
description of the Bean-feast. Oh, if I had only been there! But it
is wicked of me to say that."

But later on there was a touch of curiosity, almost a shadow of
doubt.

"You say so little about Miss Elizabeth Templeton," she wrote, "and
yet you are at the Wood House every day. It is always Miss
Templeton. Is it heresy, dear? but I fancy I should like Miss
Elizabeth best. Tell me more about her next time you write. I want
to see her with your eyes." But Anna pleaded in vain--on the subject
of Elizabeth's merits he kept silence.

But it was quite true that he was at the Wood House nearly every
day, and that the sisters always welcomed him most kindly. Sometimes
he dined there, either alone or with the Kestons; or he would stroll
across at tea-time, or oftener in the evening, when they were
sitting on the terrace. David Carlyon was often with them; his
father had left him by this time. The young men used to look askance
at each other in the dim light, and Malcolm would shake hands with
the curate rather stiffly.

"Carlyon was there again," he would say to Amias, when he found his
friend smoking in the porch. "I don't dislike the fellow, but one
may have too much even of a good thing." Then Amias looked at him
rather queerly but made no answer.

Caleb Martin and Kit were established comfortably at the cottage
under Mrs. Sullivan's motherly wing, and Kit's white pinched little
face filled out in the sweet country air.

"She is a different creature," Caleb assured Malcolm. "I wish Ma'am
could see her. She is just as happy as the day is long. We are in
the woods from morning to night, picking up fir-cones and building
with them, and making believe that we are gypsies. She's ready to
drop with fatigue before she lets me take her home, and then our
good lady scolds us a bit."

"And poor Mrs. Martin is alone in Todmorden's Lane?" remarked
Malcolm.

"Lord love you, sir," returned Caleb, "you don't need to be pitying
Ma'am; she's glad to be rid of the pair of us. She is whitewashing
and papering the rooms. She is a handy woman, is Ma'am, and she says
we shall not know the place when we go back. I never knew such a
woman for scrubbing and cleaning--it seems to make her happy
somehow."

Malcolm made frequent visits to Rotherwood to see Caleb and Kit, and
he generally paid them on the days when Elizabeth was at the
schools, so that he could walk back with her through the woodlands.

The first time he did this Elizabeth seemed rather surprised, though
she offered no objection; but after that she took it as a matter of
course, and chatted with him on all manner of subjects. She listened
very kindly when Malcolm sounded her on the subject of Kit, and made
all sorts of impossible plans for the child's future; and though she
laughed at him good-humouredly, and told him that he was a
visionary, impracticable person, she soon became serious and brought
her shrewd common-sense and feminine wits to his assistance. And so
it was that one day he made a proposition that nearly took Caleb's
breath away.

Kit must certainly not go back to Todmorden's Lane until she was
stronger, he remarked. Miss Templeton and he were fully agreed on
this point; the fogs and low-lying mists from the river were harmful
to her poor little chest.

Caleb must leave her under Mrs. Sullivan's care. Miss Templeton had
made all arrangements, and he would be responsible for the expense.
There had been a pitched battle over this point; but for once
Elizabeth had been forced to give in, Malcolm had been so stern and
masterful.

Caleb should come down for the week-end every three weeks or so, he
could promise him that, and a whole week at Christmas. But Caleb
looked too much dazed to answer, and there was a misty look in the
transparent, light-blue eyes.

"I'm took all of a heap!" he ejaculated at last. "It is not that I
don't thank you kindly, sir, for I am pretty nigh choking with
gratitude; but you see there is Ma'am to reckon with--if Kit were
her own little 'un she couldn't be fonder of her."

"I daresay not," remarked Malcolm, and there was a trace of
impatience in his tone; "but, after all, Mr. Martin, you are Kit's
father." But Caleb only shook his head doubtfully, and went on in
his slow, ruminating way.

"Most folk think that Ma'am is a bad-natured woman because she gives
them the rough side of her tongue; but, Lord bless you, her bark's
worse than her bite. Her heart is just set on Kit, and she would not
hurt a hair of her head in her most contrary moods, when even the
black cat won't stay in the place she is making such a scrimmage
with the pots and pans. But Kit only laughs. 'It is Ma'am at her
music,' she says; 'but it t'aint the sort of music I like.' Yes,
indeed, sir, I have heered her say that a score of times."

"Very well, then, you had better go and have a talk with your wife,"
returned Malcolm.

And Caleb went, and came back to Rotherwood the next day a sadder
and a wiser man.

"Well, and what did Mrs. Martin say?" asked Malcolm when he saw
Caleb again.

The little cobbler drew his hand across his eyes in an embarrassed
fashion; he was evidently trying to recollect something.

"Ma'am sends her humble duty," he answered presently in a sing-song
voice, "and she is greatly obliged to you and the kind lady, and Kit
may stay along of Mrs. Sullivan--those were her very words, sir."

"Mrs. Martin is a sensible woman then."

"Oh, she is that, sir. She was scolding me all supper-time for not
thinking of the child's good. 'You can bring her back if you like,
Caleb,' she says, 'and poison her with the filthy fogs, and get her
ready for her coffin, poor lamb. And you call yourself a father,
Caleb Martin? Drat all such fathers, I say!' She made me clean
ashamed of myself, did Ma'am;" and here the little man looked ready
to cry.

"Well, Mr. Martin, I do think the child will be better here, and you
can come down every three weeks or so to see her--you know we have
arranged that--and now and then you can bring your wife too;" and
Caleb brightened up at this.

But the day he left Rotherwood he was so lugubrious and tearful that
Malcolm felt quite sorry for him; but Kit took a less depressing
view.

"I don't want you to go, dad," she said feelingly; "but I like
staying along with this good lady," with a friendly nod of her head
to Mrs. Sullivan. "I have got a black kitten of my own and a yellow
chick, and they are better than dolls because they can love me back.
And the ladies from the Wood House are going to take me out for
drives--my, won't that be 'eavenly!" Nevertheless Kit shed a few
tears when Caleb closed the little gate behind him. "I want to stay
here, and I want daddy too," she said rather pitifully.

All these weeks Malcolm had seen nothing of Cedric. His visit to the
Jacobis had been prolonged for another ten days, and then he wrote,
in high spirits, to tell his sisters that Dick Wallace had invited
him to go down to his father's place in Scotland.

"I expect I shall have rare sport there, and stalk a deer or two,"
he continued. "Dick and I are to go down by the night mail on
Thursday, but I will run over to Staplegrove for a few hours. Tell
Herrick I will look him up at his diggings."

By some oversight Elizabeth forgot to give Malcolm this message, and
Malcolm, who had to go up to town on business, was much chagrined to
find that Cedric had called during his absence, and had been greatly
disappointed at missing him.

He went across to the Wood House directly after supper, and found
the ladies sitting out on the terrace.

Elizabeth was very contrite.

"It was dreadfully careless of me," she confessed; "I meant to have
sent you a note last night, but some one called--who was it, Dinah?-
-and put it out of my head." But Dinah could not recollect that any
one had called except David Carlyon, and seemed rather surprised at
the question.

"Oh, it must have been Mr. Carlyon," returned Elizabeth; but she
coloured slightly. "It was really very stupid of me; Cedric was
quite put out about it."

"Oh, well, it cannot be helped," observed Malcolm, philosophically.
"Did he say much about the Jacobis?"

"No, he only remarked that they had been very kind, and that he had
had a rattling good time. Those were his words, were they not, Die?"
and Dinah smiled assent.

"We both asked him a heap of questions, but they seemed to bore him;
he was full of his Scotch visit, and would scarcely talk of anything
else."

Malcolm was not quite satisfied, but he kept his doubts to himself.
Elizabeth, who was as sharp as a needle, looked up at him quickly.
"We did our best, I assure you, Mr. Herrick, but he refused to be
drawn; he seemed very much excited."

"The Wallaces are a good sort of people, are they not?" was
Malcolm's next question.

"Oh yes, they are thoroughly nice;" it was Dinah who answered him.
"Sir Richard is charming, and so is Lady Wallace; and of course Dick
is an old acquaintance of ours."

"There are some daughters, I believe?"

"Yes, but they are not very young or attractive, poor things,"
replied Elizabeth--"heavy, podgy sort of girls, but very kind-
hearted. By the bye, Die, I wonder if Cedric will come across the
Godfreys, they are somewhere in the neighbourhood." And then she
explained to Malcolm that Fettercairn Hall, where Sir Richard
Wallace lived, was only a few miles from the shooting lodge where
the Godfreys were staying; and this fact appeared to give the
sisters a good deal of satisfaction.

It was the middle of September now, and Malcolm reflected with some
uneasiness that more than half his holiday was over. The Kestons had
decided to return to Cheyne Walk in another three weeks or so, and
of course he must accompany them; his mother and Anna would be back
in town by that time, and his presence would be needed in Lincoln's
Inn.

"The shadows of the prison-house," as he called it, began to haunt
him, and he counted up his days as jealously as a miser counts his
gold.

Every day he saw Elizabeth; and each hour he was alone with her he
found it more difficult to keep silence; but as yet he had had
himself well in hand. Perhaps something in her manner had sealed his
lips, or he feared that the spell of this happy dream would be
broken. But during those wakeful summer nights, when that sweet pain
kept him restless, he would tell himself that the time had not yet
come, that she did not know him well enough.

"She is not a young girl," he would say to himself; "she is a mature
woman who knows the world and has thought deeply-why, even to know
her is a liberal education." And then he repeated to himself in the
darkness those lines of Shelley--

"Her voice was like the voice of his own soul,
Heard in the calm of thought,"

for all the sweet influences of summer and nature had only fed the
passion, and every day it seemed to grow stronger and stronger.

"She is my other self, she thinks my thoughts, we have a thousand
things in common, how can she help loving me!" he would say when his
mood was jubilant and sanguine; but at other times a chill doubt
would cross his mind.

"She is different from other women, she will not be easily won, that
is why I fear to speak;" but all the same Malcolm registered a
mental vow that he would not leave Staplegrove until the decisive
words had been spoken.

CHAPTER XXIV

DOWN BY THE POOL

The heaven
Of thy mild brows hath given
Grace to all things I see;
And in thy life I live, and lose myself in thee.
--J. Addington Symonds

I would love infinitely, and be loved.
--Browning

Malcolm was no hot-headed boy to be moved by mere impulse,
nevertheless the day came when all his prudent resolutions were
forgotten, when silence and self-repression were absolute torture to
him, when he felt he must speak or for ever hold his peace.

It was Elizabeth's birthday; he only heard that afterwards, or he
would have brought her some choice offering in the shape of flowers
or books, in honour of his patron Saint's fete-day; but happily
Elizabeth was unconscious of this.

"I am thirty-one to-day," she said to him gaily; "is not that a
great age? Oh, no wonder Cedric calls me an old maid." And then she
laughed with an air of enjoyment, as though her new title amused
her. "Old maids can be very nice, can they not, Mr. Herrick?"

They were sitting down by the Pool, and Dinah had just left them at
Elizabeth's suggestion to tell the servants that they would have tea
there, and to answer a business note. The afternoon was sultry, more
like August than September; but down by the Pool there was a
pleasant shade and coolness. As usual, all the dogs were grouped
round them; and Elizabeth, in spite of her thirty-one years, looked
quite youthful in her white gown. A dark velvety Cramoisie rose
nestled against her full throat. Malcolm remembered suddenly that he
had noticed that special rose in the garden of the White Cottage
when he last dined at the vicarage; he wondered with a sudden fierce
prick of jealousy if that fellow Carlyon knew it was her birthday,
and had brought it to her. At the idea there was a dangerous
throbbing of his pulses.

The previous evening he had strolled across to the Wood House in the
hope that Elizabeth would be in one of her gracious moods, and then
he could coax her to sing to him. But to his disappointment his
visit had seemed less welcome than usual; and though Dinah received
him with her wonted gentle courtesy, he had a vague suspicion that
something was amiss. Dinah looked as though she had been shedding
tears, and Elizabeth's face was flushed, and she was very silent; if
he had not known them so well, and their intense love for each
other, he would almost have suspected that there had been a warm
altercation between them, but this was manifestly impossible.

No, they had never quarrelled even in their childish days, he
remembered Elizabeth had once told him that, and assuredly they
never quarrelled now. Nevertheless, there was something troubled in
the atmosphere, and even Dinah seemed to find it difficult to talk.

Malcolm raged inwardly over his disappointment, but he had too much
tact to prolong his visit. He was rewarded for his forbearance when
Dinah said in her gentle way, "I am afraid we are rather stupid to-
night, Mr. Herrick; Elizabeth is tired, and--and--we have been
talking for hours; if you look in to-morrow afternoon we will
promise to behave better." But though Elizabeth did not endorse
this, Malcolm accepted this invitation with undisguised pleasure.

But his satisfaction would have been sadly damped if he had
overheard Elizabeth's speech. "Why did you ask him, Die? You know"--
hesitating a moment--" that I like to be quiet on my birthday."

"He looked so dull," returned Dinah apologetically; "I think we
depressed him. I am very sorry, dear; I ought to have found out your
wishes first. But he will not stay long unless we ask him."
Elizabeth made no answer to this; she looked thoughtful and a little
troubled, and Dinah felt she had done the wrong thing. But this
afternoon Elizabeth was in her old sunshiny mood, and she made her
little speech about being an old maid in a way that charmed Malcolm.

How still it was down by the Pool! Only a dry leaf dropping into the
water, or the sleepy snapping of one of the dogs at the midges, or
the faint twitter of a far-off bird broke the silence. The air was
sweet with the warm, resinous smell of the firs; the strong perfume
seemed to pervade his senses.

He was alone with her--not a human creature was near them; and he
was so close that if he had stretched out his hand he could have
touched her dress. Malcolm's heart began beating dangerously, and
there was a curious throbbing at his temples; when he tried to speak
his voice was thick and indistinct; then with a great effort he
steadied himself, for his time had come and he knew it.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30