She loitered on the step, even after the sound of wheels grew dim. Her
eyes feasted on the golden river and her ears caught the pleasant notes
of insects and night birds; but her mind was alert and practical to the
moment. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Howard, standing
by the chimney-piece and leaning upon it in a handsome and familiar
attitude. He could not have looked more at home if he had owned the
house. A sense of anger stirred in her.
“If he were old I could understand it. Old men naturally want a snug
home to die in!” Then, as was habitual with her, amusement took the
place of indignation. “To-morrow I’ll hang a crape bow and streamers
between my shoulder-blades and go my way in lonesome peace.”
Thinking that she might as well have it over with, she went indoors
slowly. She looked quizzically at Howard as she said, with pointed
emphasis on the degree of relationship:
“Well, Mr. Fifth-Cousin-by-Marriage, what is this legend about my bolts
and bars? I shall leave my windows open as usual, I suppose.”
“Oh! that was an excuse, of course--and a thin one. Dear Rosamond, I
wonder if you have any idea why I have lingered?”
His assumption of tenderness did not please her. She sank into the
big chair by the settee, making herself comfortable with cushions and
footstool. If she must hear another proposal of marriage that day, she
would at least hear it at her ease.
“I’ve seen it taking shape, but I did hope you wouldn’t,” she said
shortly.
“Wouldn’t what?” in surprise, for no indication of her humour had
reached him.
“Propose. That is what you are about to do, isn’t it?” She let him see
that she felt a malicious enjoyment in his embarrassment.
Howard had been totally unprepared for her sally and he resented being
made to look foolish; but, after the first hesitation, he decided to
go on, according to his plan. Rosamond must marry; if she did not
know that she must marry, he would soon convince her that a prolonged
and colourful widowhood, with honour, could not be _her_ portion in
Roseborough. She must marry, and where could she find a more suitable
husband than himself? (Like Judge Giffen and Mr. Albert Andrews, he
also considered himself her inevitable choice.)
“Perhaps I ought hardly to go so far without more preparation;
but--er--Rosamond, jealousy of your friendship with the musical
newcomer to Roseborough has made me seem precipitate. But I have
desired to say all this to you for a long time.”
He was young, magnetic, and of her own race, and suddenly her longing
for comradeship went out to him.
“Oh, Wilton,” she almost pleaded, “I don’t want to marry you. I won’t
say that I never mean to marry, because some one might come. Yet, if he
were interesting enough to love, why would he ever come to Roseborough?
No, I couldn’t love Dr. Frei. But I wish I could marry the song of
his fiddle and be blown off on the wind with my bridegroom a thousand
leagues from here.”
“My dear girl, have you not lived happily here, where you are beloved
by all?”
She made a wry face.
“Can’t even you understand me a little? You’re _young_.”
“I _wish_ to understand you, above everything.”
“Can’t you guess what it’s been like, underneath the--the--velvet
surface? When I was a poor young girl in Poplars Vale I longed for a
finished education and a high station. Hibbert Mearely was fifty-three
when my ingenuous countenance met his collector’s eye. He put me
here--as a living ornament--among his paintings and his books and
antiques where everything is old and stable and has a set value.
Look at the chairs; when you sit down, you feel you are settled there
for life--and will not move again till some one carries you to the
churchyard. I came here so proudly--to be the wife of such a fine,
distinguished gentleman. I thought it would be a wonderful life--with
all this,” she waved her hands to indicate the furnishings of Mr.
Mearely’s museum. “But it wasn’t. It was dreadful. In its heart,
Roseborough still regards me as an alien and an upstart. My mother
once sold butter. They remember that. They are waiting for a chance
to rub it in. Now that my crape is two years behind me, the three or
four bachelors and the five widowers are eager to pounce on me with
marriage. And all the women are ready to destroy me with gossip.”
She ceased abruptly, holding out her hands to him with a plea for help,
for friendship and an open door of escape that should not bear the sign
“Matrimony” on the centre panel. Howard took her hands and bent over
them, giving her the benefit, too, of his magnetic and confident smile.
He saw in her appeal exactly the opportunity he needed.
“That, partly, is what hastens my offer. Gossip is inevitable. Why
not forestall it? As a matter of fact, a young woman cannot remain
alone--more especially if she is a widow, and beautiful.” He kissed her
hand.
“And rich,” she said dryly--as if completing his sentence for him--and
withdrew her hand.
“I--er--I hope you do not do me that injustice.” He spoke with hurt
dignity.
“Oh, certainly not,” she answered flippantly. “That is always
understood in offers of this kind.”
Howard was becoming angry. He told himself that he had not given up
Mabel, whom he loved, and done the butter-maker’s daughter the honour
to offer her himself in marriage, in order to let her insult him as the
mood swayed her. He spoke calmly but with the accents of a superior.
“You are cynical, my dear. Are you worldly-wise enough to realize that
Roseborough will make you marry?”
She walked away from him across the room.
“Yes, I know it. One link after another in the chain about me till
I’m crushed flat,” desperately--“and old--_old_!” A sob escaped her.
She picked up the pack of cards and tossed them loose over the table,
as if her last chance of happiness were proved no more than bits of
pasteboard and she had cast it from her as worthless. Wilton, thinking
her agitation in his favour, went to her.
“Perhaps,” she said, eyeing him resentfully, “it might as well be you
as any one.”
“Might it not _better_ be I than any one?” he demanded, capturing her
hand again.
“Yes, I suppose so,” she replied, considering it impersonally. “You’re
young.”
“Then it is ‘yes’?” ardently.
She pulled her hand away and came out of her abstraction.
“Good gracious, no!” bluntly. “Not so fast, cousin. I am much too
sleepy to decide anything so important to-night. Besides, to-night I am
in love with the song of the fiddle. And you are not that song!” She
sighed.
“A much more substantial lover,” he answered laughingly.
“Stupid thing!” she thought. “I suppose you think your ‘substantial’
person has more power to stir me than the echoes of Tschaikowsky!”
“And when?” he began.
“Do say good-night, like a good fellow. I am so tired. I want to go
to bed at once--and sleep forever.” She walked out to the verandah,
compelling him to follow. “I’ll think you over.”
“I hope you’ll think kindly,” he said, with a softness in his voice and
his eyes that he had not shown her before. But Mabel could have told
her how one woman, at least, yearned to him because of that note in his
gamut, for which he deserved as little credit as for the shape of his
nose.
“Oh, Wilton! I am so--so tired!” Her lip quivered. “Nothing but this
same narrow little life, over and over--daily--yearly! Oh! Look at
the river, running away so swiftly and freely; it is the only thing
that ever came to Roseborough and got away again! Every time I look
at it, I think it is laughing at me. It laughed at me down there in
Poplars Vale. It mocks me more cruelly here, with its swift journeying
to--somewhere.”
Turning to him, in her irrepressible longing for sympathy, she saw that
he did not understand her in the least, but was studying how he might
best impress her by a loverlike pose.
“I’ll think you over,” she promised airily. “Good-night. Go, before I
fall asleep at your feet,” she added, with the rather cruel intimation
that there was nothing about his wooing which could conquer her
boredom. By a quick, vigorous handshake she prevented him from kissing
her fingers again. She caught up his cap and gloves from the settle and
pressed them into his arms. He went out, smiling; for he believed this
haste to be rid of him was in reality a tribute to his irresistible
powers of fascination.
“Good-night, dear Rosamond. Good-night. Sleep soundly,” he called from
below the wall, as his dog-cart went by.
Rosamond made no reply. She stood by the rail, looking at the “velvety
star-veined night” and the river. The noise of wheels died down; the
only sound was the chirring of crickets. She turned off the verandah
light. She came into the room and went about, methodically putting out
all the individual lamps but one. This she left on for a purpose, it
appeared; because, presently, she found a little leather-bound book on
the flower-stand by the fireplace, and slid up into a corner of the
settee with it. In settling herself she almost knocked a paper off the
arm-piece.
“Dear me,” she said aloud. “The Judge’s sacred _Digest_! How could he
have forgotten it? I suppose Mrs. Witherby’s hysterics must have put it
out of his head.”
She glanced at it idly and her eye was caught by the first column.
“Corinne’s runaway prince!” She smiled, and began to read. When she
had perused the story she laid the _Digest_ aside, musing on the Royal
Highness whose heart was so oddly in tune with her own.
“Eccentric--romantic--artistic,” she repeated. “Fond of wandering about
incognito--and entering humble dwellings--and making friends. Making
friends.” She dwelt wistfully on the last words.
The little copy of Browning opened naturally at the place she sought;
and she need not have opened it at all, for she knew by heart the lines
she loved. This, it may be pointed out, was not her late master’s
“first edition,” autographed by Princess Victoria for sale at the
Indian Famine Relief Bazaar. She had bought this copy for herself and
loved it for its contents, not for its binding nor for a scrawl on its
fly-leaf. Softly, she said the lines:
“‘While not a man of them broke rank and spoke,
Or wrote me a vulgar letter all of love,
Or caught my hand and pressed it like a hand.
There have been moments if the sentinel,
Lowering his halbert to salute the queen,
Had flung it brutally and clasped my knees,
I would have stooped and kissed him with my soul.’”
She laid the book on the stand and sat quite still and silent for some
time, then she murmured:
“We’re all alike, the queen and I, Corinne and her runaway prince. I
wonder if all the world is longing just for--something different?”
The large room was almost dark; its only light came from the one little
lamp on the mantel, which cast its dim halo upon her, and from the open
door of the music room. Outside, the moon, the stars, and the river
shed their mystic radiance over and through the slumbering valley.
“If there could only have been one word from some one--one note out of
the earth or the sky--to promise me something....”
Clear, mellow, and resonant, one note rang out from the tower and
rolled like an invisible golden wheel up the hills and down the valley.
Rosamond sat up, straining her ears.
“The tower bell!” she whispered. “It rang!--once! And it never rings
after six!”
The sound was not repeated, and, after a time, she began to ask
herself if perhaps she had not nodded for a second and dreamed that
she heard the bell. She rose and went into the dining room to turn off
the lights. Then she put out the little lamp on the chimney-piece and
passed into the music room where she busied herself in replacing the
Tschaikowsky album in the music rack and in closing the piano. The last
duty here was to turn out the tall stand-lamp.
“I wonder _did_ I dream that bell?” she queried, as she came back to
the living room.
If she had not been wondering so absorbedly about the bell, she might
have heard another and slighter noise much closer at hand. That noise
was the sound of a light-footed creature terminating a leap in the
centre of her verandah. Just prior to that sound, a man’s figure had
been silhouetted against the moonlit sky, as he climbed nimbly and
stood an instant on the railing.