Chapter Twenty Two
Tell him to come to see me
The Priory was taken, and in less than twenty-four hours, my mother found herself the occupant of a large, luxuriously-furnished chamber. Her windows commanded an extensive and most lovely view. She had a glimpse of the winding river which made our little village a favourite summer resort for anglers. It meandered away like a narrow silver thread in the midst of the peaceful landscape. Already there was a faint tinge of soft, pale green on the trees, and an added brightness was making the grass beautiful with a fresh growth. The Priory had sloping lawns, flower-beds carefully tended and gay with all the early spring flowers. There were greenhouses in abundance; there were gravel-walks and tennis-courts; in short, the usual pleasure-grounds which surround a country home of some pretension.
Inside the appointments were perfect. An able staff of servants attended to our every want. There were suites of beautiful rooms, bright, and gay, and clean. Fresh air and sweetness pervaded everything. In short, there could scarcely have been found a greater contrast than Myrtle Cottage, where the Lindley family had resided for so many years, and the Priory, where that same family now enjoyed the pleasures of refined existence.
It is surprising how soon one gets accustomed to luxury. My father and brother, who began by accepting the good things of life with a humility almost painful to witness, before a week was out grumbled about the quality of the soup served at dinner, and expressed in plaintive tones their dislike to turbot appearing too often on the board.
“You must see to this, Rosamund,” George would say, shaking his head, and my father would descant on the menage of that West End club to which he belonged a great many years ago, before he married my mother.
Meanwhile I lived in a sort of dream. I was not unhappy, for my mother was better. The new life suited her. My father’s cheerful tones were more stimulating and strengthening than the best champagne or the strongest beef-tea.
At the end of the first week she expressed a desire to see Jack and his wife again.
“I will write and ask them to come here,” I said. I went down-stairs prepared to do this. I was thinking of the pleasure my letter would give to Hetty. How she would hurry her own and her husband’s departure – how pretty and surprised she would look when she came to our luxurious new home – how nice it would be to dress her suitably, and make life sweet and pleasant to her. I was thinking these thoughts and forgetting all about the conditions of Cousin Geoffrey’s will, when I went into the drawing-room to fetch my writing portfolio which I had left there on the previous evening.
“Hey-day!” said a voice. I raised my eyes and found myself face to face with Mr Gray. “How do you do, Miss Rosamund?” he said, shaking my hand. “I judge from your own blooming appearance that your mother is much better.”
“Yes, she is much better,” I replied.
“What a wise girl you are, and were! How much I respect you! Now can you give me a few moments of your time?”
“Yes,” I replied. My “Yes” was uttered in a meek voice. The gladness had gone out of my face and manner. “Yes,” I repeated, “my time is, of course, at your disposal, Mr Gray.”
“Well, let us sit here comfortably on this sofa. Miss Rosamund, I have been very considerate to you, have I not? I have not troubled you with word or message for a whole week.”
“I know it,” I replied. “I know you have been kind.” My eyes filled with tears.
“It is a great wonder to me,” began Mr Gray. He stopped abruptly. “I don’t understand what girls are made of,” he continued under his breath – “the very nicest fellow! – Miss Rosamund, please answer me one question. Do you greatly object to marrying your – your cousin?”
“I am not bound to reply to you,” I said. “I knew that I should have to marry my cousin if he were willing to have me when I wrote you that letter a week ago. I did it for my mother’s sake.” My tears were dropping. I felt dreadfully weak and childish. I hated myself for giving way to emotion in this fashion.
“Yes, yes,” said Mr Gray, patting my arm, “and you were a very plucky girl, Miss Rosamund, and you are going to have a happy – most happy life. Your cousin is a first-class fellow —first-class. I had the pleasure of communicating to him the contents of the will a few days ago, and he sends you a message now.”
“What – what is it?” I stammered.
“He says you are to take your own time. He won’t even come to see you unless you wish it. He had made all arrangements to go back to Africa, and he will go all the same unless you wish him to remain. It all rests with you, he says. Nothing could be more gentlemanly than his conduct.”
I sat very still, my eyes were fixed on the spring landscape outside the window.
“There has been no – no letter, I suppose?” I said.
“There is no letter, but not for want of thought, I assure you. Your cousin felt that you would rather not hear from him. He said I could convey his wishes to you; in short, his wishes are yours. There is just one thing more. If you elect to postpone the – the marriage for a year, I have made arrangements to supply you with funds to live on at the Priory with your family.”
I sat very still.
I don’t know why, but my silence and almost apathy began to irritate Mr Gray very much. I felt that he was looking at me impatiently. I even heard him sigh. Suddenly he sprang to his feet.
“What answer am I to take to Tom Valentine?” he asked.
Then I raised my head.
“Tell him to come to see me,” I said.
“Good gracious! Do you mean it?”
“I do mean it.”
“When is he to come?”
“To-night, if he likes – the sooner the better.”
I rushed away, I flew up the wide stairs. My one desire was to take refuge in my mother’s room. A wide bay-window faced the sofa where she lay. The sun had set more than half an hour ago, but faint rose tints still lingered in the sky, and a full moon was showing her cold but brilliant face. The weather was turning quite genial and spring-like. Under ordinary circumstances I should not have cared to sit so near the fire. Now I huddled up to it, glad of its warmth, for I was shivering slightly, with the queerest mixture of suppressed excitement, despair, and yet gladness. Now and then I glanced at my mother. From where she lay I could only see a dim outline of her figure. She was lying very still; her hands were peacefully folded by her side; her breathing came gently; there was repose about her attitude.
Her voice, very sweet and clear, soon broke the silence.
“Rose, come here, darling.”
I sprang up, ran to her, and knelt by her side. My mother often called me in this way, not because she had anything special to say, but because she liked to feel my firm young hand clasping hers.
She laid her fingers in mine now, and turned her soft brown eyes to catch the outline of my face.
“Mother!” I exclaimed with sudden passion, “in all the wide world you are to me the very sweetest, the dearest, the best.” Tears trembled in my voice, and almost choked me. I hated myself for giving way. My mother kept on looking at me. She softly patted the hand which held one of hers. It was not in her to express her feelings except by that gentlest of touches.
“And if you die, I shall die,” I continued. “Mother, you must get better – you must live, you must!”
“It is as God wills, my darling.”
“That is just it, mother. He would not have made us rich if He did not will that you are to live. Poverty and care were killing you. Now they have folded their wings, and gone away. You will always be rich in the future; you will always have the most nourishing food, the softest care, the tenderest love. Don’t you think you can nestle down into the love and the care, mother? Don’t you think you can try?”
“I do try, Rose. But poverty – poverty and trouble have left their mark. That mark has sunk deep, very deep. Still, I will try to live for your sake – indeed, for all your sakes. Don’t cry, my dear daughter.”
I wiped my tears softly away. After a time, I said in a voice which I tried hard not to be tremulous:
“Are you strong enough, mother, for me to say something?”
“Yes, my darling, certainly.”
“Are you not a little surprised, mother, at this sudden change? Are you not a little curious to know by what means poverty has folded her wings and flown away from us?” My mother was silent for nearly a full moment, then she said slowly:
“I know you have a story to tell me whenever I am ready to hear it. But I am too weak to listen to it to-night. Weakness keeps us from being very curious, Rose. I don’t think, even in health, I was ever inordinately curious about anything. I was always able to take things on trust from those I loved. I can take riches on trust for the present, Rose.”
“You are just the sweetest mother in the world,” I said, kissing her on her forehead.
Just then the peal of the front-door bell penetrated into my mother’s room. I started back at the sound.
“What is the matter, dear?” she asked. “Did that bell startle you?”
“It did, mother, because – because I know who has come.”
“Some friend of yours, darling?”
“Yes, a – a friend of mine. I must go down-stairs to see him. Mother, give me your two hands for a moment.”
She gave them without a word. I bent low, and placed my mother’s hands on my head.
“Mother, say these words over me, ‘God bless you, Rosamund; your mother’s God bless you!’”
“Your mother’s God abundantly bless you, my precious daughter?” said my mother.
I kissed her thin hands passionately, and ran out of the room.
A footman in livery was coming up the stairs. He bore a card on a silver salver.
“The gentleman is in the drawing-room, miss,” he said.
I took the card, rushed past the astonished servant, and untidy and discomposed, tears scarcely dried on my cheeks, entered the drawing-room.
My cousin Tom was standing by one of the windows. When he heard my step he turned quickly round, advanced a pace or two, then stood still, a crimson wave of colour dyeing his darkly-bronzed cheeks, and his white brow. He looked confused, awkward, uncertain. I, on the contrary, had no room in my over-full heart for embarrassment.
“I have sent for you, Cousin Tom,” I said, “to say that I will marry you as soon as ever you will have me.” I looked him full in the face as I spoke, and when I had finished I held out one of my hands for him to take.
He stared at me for a moment in absolute astonishment. Then a queer change came over his whole face. It became irradiated with the sweetest and most joyful light. He took my slim fingers between his two great hands, and almost crushed them.
“And I would marry you to-morrow, Rosamund,” he said, “not because of Cousin Geoffrey’s will, but because I love you for yourself. I love you, Rosamund; I have loved you since – ”
There came an interruption. The drawing-room door was banged noisily open. Jack’s voice was heard on the threshold. Hetty’s gay, agitated little treble followed it.
Tom Valentine dropped my hands.
Chapter Twenty Three
The Dearest Bond
My cousin, Tom Valentine, stayed to supper. We had a very merry, rapturous sort of evening. There was an unexplained mystery that no one spoke of; but that did not make our spirits the lower, or our laughter the less frequent. We laughed a good deal; we made witty remarks; we joked each other; we criticised each other; we even alluded, lightly and gracefully, to the old days of poverty.
We were all present at the board – all except my mother. Her room was overhead. Our gay voices must have floated up to her through the big windows which were partly open. My father took the foot of the table; his face looked quite handsome; his brow was smooth; he made the wittiest remarks of any one present.
Looking down the long table – for I poured out coffee at the farthest end – I perceived at a glance that poverty had all his life acted as a sort of umbrella over my father’s head, shutting away the genial rays of the sun, and causing his nature to wither as a plant does when removed from the light and air. Now the umbrella was shut, and my father’s nature was expanding genially.
George too was very much the better for his good food, cheerful home, and well-made clothes. (I had sent him to a West End tailor a week ago, and when he returned home in the suit of clothes which that tailor had given him, I discovered for the first time that George was a remarkably well-made man.)
As to Jack and Hetty, this was their first taste of the good things of life. They were still poorly clad, their faces were thin, and in each pair of eyes anxiety was not dead, but only lulled to sleep.
Notwithstanding this, however, these two – the brother who had fallen a victim to temptation, and the little new sister who had loved him and suffered for his sake – were to me more interesting, more powerful to move me, more capable of filling my heart with rejoicing, than were any other people in the room.
As to Cousin Tom – it is very strange, but I scarcely thought of Cousin Tom during that jovial meal. He was there – he was one of us; he was a most important factor in all the happiness; without him there would have been no happiness, no delightful sunshine of prosperity.
It seemed to me, however, as I shared the merry meal, and saw the faces of my own people looking their best and brightest, either that there was no room for Cousin Tom in my heart, or that his footing in it was so well-established that he was part of me already. I have thought of that happy evening often since, and I am quite sure now that the reason I gave so little separate thought to my cousin was, because I knew him so well.
After supper my father, George, Hetty, and Jack went off to explore the house. George was very polite to his new sister Hetty, and my father was glad to renew his intercourse with Jack.
“You will come with us, won’t you, Valentine?” asked George of my cousin.
“I will follow you in a few moments,” he answered.
George went away, and Tom and I were alone. He came up to me at once.
“I wish you quite to understand,” he said, speaking in a very composed and guarded sort of fashion, “that I don’t intend to take advantage of anything you may say on impulse. I love you; I loved you before I knew a word of that strange will of our old kinsman’s. The first day I saw you I felt that you were different from other women. Well, that is all. I think you believe me. I don’t want to say anything more on this matter at present. If Cousin Geoffrey had not made his queer will, I should have pressed my suit. As it is, I cannot.
“What I want to tell you now, however, is this, that you are absolutely free to choose your own time to marry me. There is to be no hurry, and no constraint is to be put upon you. I understand from Gray that you have yielded to the conditions of our cousin’s will for your mother’s sake. Gray is a right good fellow, and he appreciates your spirit of self-sacrifice. He has made it possible for us two to delay our marriage, and yet for your mother and your people not to suffer.”
“I know,” I answered, “I know. Mr Gray told me himself. But I – I don’t wish that.”
“You don’t wish to delay our marriage?”
“No; come up-stairs and see mother.”
I took his hand before he could prevent me. I ran up the wide stairs holding it. Still clasping it in mine, I entered my mother’s room.
She looked up at the sound of our feet. Her eyes rested on our faces – Cousin Tom’s pale, mine flushed. Then the pink glow deepened on her cheeks. She held out her hands to us both.
“Come,” I said to my cousin. He followed me, and my mother laid her little hand in his.
“Mother,” I said, “this is my cousin, Tom Valentine; we are going to marry each other.”
“My dear Rose, my child!”
“There is no hurry,” murmured Tom.
“There is every hurry,” I repeated; “we – we love each other.”
“Rosamund!” interrupted my cousin.
“We love each other,” I continued, steadily, “as much as any two people could. There is no reason why we should delay our marriage.”
“As that is the case, there is no reason what ever,” Tom Valentine said now. And he put his arm quite boldly round my waist.
I think my mother said something more, but I am not quite sure. The queerest thing happened at that moment; the queerest, most incomprehensible thing. I had forgotten Cousin Tom down-stairs because my father and brothers and sister were present. Now up-stairs I forgot my mother, who had hitherto been the first being in the world to me, because Cousin Tom was by; because I suddenly knew that my heart was his, my life his, my future his; because I realised that if every other part of Cousin Geoffrey’s will crumbled into dust and ceased to bind me, the clause which gave me to Tom Valentine would remain in force, and be the sweetest and dearest of all bonds to me.
Cousin Tom’s arm held me still firmer to his side. I turned and laid my head on his shoulder.
The End.