About a month passed by, and the scene which I have alluded to seemed to
have receded like distant smoke. Lady Helen and my father were the best
of friends. I went to see Lady Carrington as often as I could, but for
some reason Lady Helen Dalrymple and she were only the merest
acquaintances, and I could see that Lady Helen was jealous when Lady
Carrington invited me to her house. The days I spent with that good
woman were the happiest of my life just then, but they were few and far
between.
I saw very little of father. After our long delightful day at Richmond
he seemed to pass more or less out of my life. He seemed to me to be an
absolute and complete cipher, so much so that I could not bear to look
at him. His hearty, happy, jolly, delightful manners were subdued, his
eyes were more sunken than they used to be, and the colour in his cheeks
had quite faded. I used to gaze at him with a pang at my heart, and
wonder if he were really growing thin. He hardly ever said now, "Hallo,
hallo! here we are!" or "Oh, I say, how jolly!" In fact, I never heard
any of his old hearty exclamations; but what annoyed me most was that
when Lady Helen was present he hardly took any notice of me.
Nevertheless, I had my good times, for by now I was tired of sitting up
half the night and of going to endless dances and listening to
innumerable empty compliments, and being smiled at by men whom I could
not take the faintest interest in, and whose names I hardly remembered.
But as the summer came on faster and faster, and the London season
advanced to its height, I did enjoy my morning walks with Morris. Lady
Helen had said something about my having a horse to ride, but up to the
present I was not given one, and consequently I walked with Morris, and
we invariably went into Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens.
I remember a day early in May, when I unexpectedly met Captain Carbury.
I was sitting on a chair, with Morris next to me, when I saw him in the
distance. He pushed rapidly through a crowd of people, and came up to my
side. He took a chair close to mine.
"Can't you get your maid to walk about for a short time?" he said. "I
have something of great importance I want to say to you."
I turned towards Morris.
"Morris, will you kindly go to the first entrance and buy me two
shillingsworth of violets?" I said to the girl.
Morris rose at once to do what I asked.
"That's right," said Captain Carbury, when we were alone. "I have such a
strange thing to tell you, Miss Grayson."
"That isn't my name now," I said.
"I beg your pardon," he replied, turning a little red, "Miss Dalrymple."
Then he added: "I have been wanting to see you for weeks, but did not
know how to manage it."
"But was there any difficulty?" I asked. "You know where my father and
Lady Helen live. You could have called."
He coloured and looked down on the ground.
"We have met at last," he said, after a pause, "and now I have this to
tell you."
"What?"
"You saw Dorothy Vinguard once, didn't you?"
"The girl you are engaged to? Of course."
"I am not engaged to her any longer; our engagement is broken off."
"Oh, I am sorry," I said, and I looked at him with a world of sympathy
in my eyes.
"Dear little Miss Heather," he replied, "you needn't be sorry, for I
assure you I am not."
"But why is it broken off?" I asked. "I thought when people were engaged
that, if they were nice people, they considered it sacred, and--and
_kept_ engaged until they married."
"Oh, you dear little innocent!" he replied. "How little you know! Well,
at any rate, I am not going to enlighten you with regard to the ways of
this wicked world. The engagement is broken off, and I am glad of it. I
didn't do it; she did. She has engaged herself now to another man, with
five or six times my money. She is all right, and so am I."
Then I said slowly, "You puzzle me very much, Captain Carbury. I thought
you were very, very fond of her."
He dug his stick into the gravel walk near; then he glanced round at me
impatiently.
"You can put all that sort of thing into the past tense," he said. "Now
tell me about yourself. How are you getting on?"
"I am not getting on," I answered.
"You surprise me! I hear quite the contrary I hear that dear little
Miss Heather, who was so kind to me, and did me such immense honour as
to put me into her gallery of heroes, is making quite a stir in society.
When society begins to appreciate you, Miss Heather, you ought to
consider yourself in luck. They say--and by 'they' I mean the people who
live in this wicked world, the people who are 'in the know,' you
understand--that if you are not engaged to be married before this time
next year, you will be the height of the fashion."
I found myself colouring very deeply.
"I don't intend to be either engaged or married," I said; "and to make a
stir in society is about the very last thing I should wish."
"I wonder what you would wish?" he asked, looking at me attentively.
I looked back at him. Then I said, in a low, quiet voice:
"I can't quite understand why it is, but I find it very easy to tell you
things. Perhaps it is because you are in my gallery and I am in yours."
"Yes, of course, that is the reason," he replied, with one of his quick,
beautiful smiles.
"I will tell you what I really want."
"Do, Miss Heather--I really can't call you Miss Dalrymple, so it must
be Miss Heather."
"I don't mind," I answered.
"Well, now then, out with your greatest wish!"
"I should like," I said, speaking deliberately, "to leave London, and to
go into the heart of the country, to find there a pretty cottage, with
woodbine and monthly roses climbing about the walls, and dear little
low-ceiled rooms, and little lattice windows, and no sign of any other
house anywhere near at all. And I should like beyond words to take
father and live with him, all by our two selves, in that cottage. I
should not want fine dresses there, and society would matter less than
nothing to me."
Captain Carbury looked somewhat surprised, then he said, quietly:
"About your father; well, of course, I--I _can't_ speak about him, you
know, but there's--there's Lady Helen. How would she enjoy your
programme?"
"There would be no programme at all, no dream to be fulfilled, no
happiness to be secured, if she went with us," I answered.
"Oh, I see," he answered; "poor little Miss Heather!" And he whistled
softly under his breath.
I looked full at him.
"You don't like her either," I said, and it seemed to me that a new and
very strong chord of sympathy sprang up between us as I uttered the
words.
"No," he answered. "I won't say why--I won't give any reasons; she may
mean all right, but she's a worldly woman, and I don't care a bit about
worldly women. I am afraid you won't have your dream, Miss Heather, so I
must tell you what is the next best thing for you to do."
"But there is no next best," I replied.
"Yes, there is. Now listen to me attentively. The very best thing, all
circumstances considered, for you to do is to get engaged right away to
the sort of fellow who understands you and whom you understand--the sort
of man who would put you into his gallery, you know, and whom you would
put into your gallery. Oh, yes, you comprehend what I mean. The best
thing for you, Miss Heather, is to get engaged to that man, and when
once you are engaged not on any account to break off your engagement,
but to have it speedily followed by marriage. You'd be as happy as the
day is long with the man who understands you, and whom you understood.
And, for that matter, you _could_ have your cottage in the country, only
it would not be shared by your father but by--well, by the other
man--the man who understands you so well, you know."
"I don't know," I said; "and I certainly won't marry any man unless I
love him."
"But you must love him," he said, giving me a long and most earnest
glance, "if you put him into your gallery of heroes."
"Oh, I don't know," I replied to that. "I can admire immensely
without--without loving. Why, Captain Carbury, I have put you in,
and----"
But then he gave me another glance, and it was so very earnest, and his
dark blue eyes looked so very pleading, that suddenly the colour leaped
into my cheeks, and I lowered my own eyes and began to tremble all over.
"It is the best thing for you, Miss Heather," he said, dropping his
voice almost to a whisper. "Oh! yes, I know what I am talking about.
Lots of girls do dreadful things; they mar their lives fearfully. I'll
tell you how they mar them. They--they marry, and not for love."
"But I am not one of those girls," I replied.
"Are you not, really?" he said. "Now, I have heard rumours, oh,
yes!--and while the rumours are being circulated, everything sounds very
nice and very golden, but----" He bent a little closer, until his arm
touched mine.
Morris was coming back. I saw her trailing her dress over the grass, and
carrying a great basket of violets, white and different shades of blue,
in her hand.
"Listen," he said. "Even if you did not love with all your heart and
soul and strength, don't you think that you might just try the man you
put into your gallery of heroes? Don't you think you might begin"--he
dropped his voice, and it became quite hoarse--"to love him a little?"
"Oh! oh! oh!" I said; "I could not! You were engaged only a few days ago
to Lady Dorothy Vinguard! Why, Captain Carbury, I never even thought of
you. I don't love anybody at all, except father--that is--yet."
"There's a great deal in the little word 'yet,' Miss Heather. We should
not be rich, neither would we be exactly poor, but I am quite sure I
could make you happy. Truly, I never really cared for Dorothy. She was
thought a good match for me, and all that sort of thing, you know; but
she was too statuesque. I want life, I want warmth, I want soul, I
want--oh! all the things you could give. I would make you as happy as
the day is long; I could, and I would. Then--let me whisper. You need
never see _her_ any more. Think of it, dear little Heather! Heather,
Morris is quite close, and I must whisper a secret to you. It was from
the day I first met you that I began to find out what sort of girl Lady
Dorothy really was--I discovered then that there was a better girl in
the world than Lady Dorothy. I want a wife like you; I want you, your
very self; you, before you learn to love the world and the ways of the
world; you--just because you are so young and so pure and sweet. Think
of it, think of it, Heather, and don't say no! Wait at least until
to-morrow. I will be in this very place at eleven o'clock to-morrow
morning, waiting to get your answer."