WHY NOT?
"There's just one more thing to be settled," observed Dr. Jefferson
Craig. "While we are settling things, suppose we attend to that."
He stood upon the hearthrug before the fire in his library, elbow on
chimney piece, looking down upon his two guests. It was eight o'clock of
the evening following that upon which Mr. David Warne and Georgiana had
arrived at the big New York house in the old-time, downtown square.
Although they had been under the hospitable roof for more than
twenty-four hours it was the first occasion on which the three had been
together for more than a few minutes at a time.
On the previous evening in an upstairs room had been enacted a little
scene which would live forever in the memories of them all; but Doctor
Craig, perceiving with trained eyes the signs of growing fatigue in his
frail friend after the unwonted strain of the day and its necessarily
emotional climax, had gently but firmly insisted on withdrawing at an
early hour. Georgiana had remained with her father, herself content to
have the strange and wonderful day end in the old, simple, and natural
way in which her days had ended for so long. She had felt, as she
performed her customary daughterly offices for the beloved invalid, that
she had quite enough to take with her to her own pillow to insure its
being the happiest upon which she had ever laid her head.
They had seen little of Doctor Craig on the following day; but he had
taken dinner with them that night, and as he had brought them back to
the library fire he had given stringent directions to the boy Thomas
that he be disturbed only for the most important summons. And hardly had
the trio taken their places in the pleasant room before Jefferson Craig
made his statement that there was something still unsettled in their
affairs.
As he spoke he was looking down at Georgiana. It would have been strange
if he could have kept his eyes away from her to-night. Like a flower in
sunshine had she bloomed under the warm influence of the joy which had
come to her when she least expected it. She was again wearing the little
gray silk frock, but now its nunlike simplicity was gone--and happily
gone--for a bunch of glowing pink Killarney roses at her belt, placed
there by Doctor Craig's hands, lighted the plain costume into one of a
charm which could no longer be called demure.
"Something still to settle?" It was Father Davy who replied, for
Georgiana had no answer for that suggestion. One glance at Doctor
Craig's face, as he said the words, had told her what was coming.
"The most important thing of all. Everything else is in order. You, dear
sir, have agreed to come and live with us. We are convinced that it's
not a sacrifice, except for the leaving of certain old friends. You have
a zest still for seeing and hearing the things you have been denied;
it's to be our keen pleasure to make your days go by on wings. You're
going to have plenty of room here for the bookcases and the books, all
the furnishings you care to keep--in short, you're to live the old life
with a fine new one as well. Altogether, everything is in train for the
great change, except"--he crossed the hearthrug at a stride, and laid a
son's hand upon the thin shoulder of Father Davy--"except the date of
it," he finished, smiling down into the uplifted face.
"But that," replied Georgiana's father without hesitation, "is not for
me to settle. It is for you two."
Craig looked across at Georgiana and for a minute studied her down-bent
profile as she sat gazing into the flames; then came round to her,
plucking a pillow from a big leather couch by the way, to drop it at her
feet and throw himself down upon it. So placed he could look straight
into her face. "You'll have to take an interest in the ceiling now if
you succeed in avoiding me," he said, with a low laugh.
"I don't want to avoid you," answered Georgiana, and let her eyes meet
his fairly for an instant. She could not yet do this in a quite casual
way.
He crossed his arms upon her knee, sitting in a boyish attitude and
looking not unlike a big boy for the moment, for all the lines of care
were gone from his face in the soft firelight, and happiness had laid
its rosy mantle over his shoulders as over hers. He began to speak
rather quickly:
"For the life of me, I can't think of a reason why you should go back
and spend a winter in the same old grind, waiting till spring
and--making me wait till spring. Why should anybody wait till spring?
I've let you talk about all the work you were going to do this winter at
home, but that was just because I didn't want to make you feel as if you
were caught in a trap. I had an idea that for a few hours, anyhow, it
might seem enough of a change to come down here and promise to marry a
perfect stranger of a surgeon instead of the 'literary light' you knew.
I thought we'd let it go at that for those few hours. But now--it
doesn't seem to me possible to go back to bachelorhood again, even with
such a prospect before me in the spring. Not after having tasted--this.
Georgiana, why must I?"
Her face was the colour of her roses. There was no getting away from the
challenge of those eyes that watched her so steadily--not even by
following his suggestion and gazing persistently ceilingward. Craig
glanced at Father Davy, to find that his soft blue eyes showed no sign
of shock, and that his face was perfectly placid as he looked and
listened.
The younger man went on, coming straight to the point: "Georgiana, marry
me before you go back! You've promised to stay a week. Let's have a
wedding here, next Wednesday. Then we'll leave Father Davy here
comfortably with Mrs. MacFayden, and run up to see about getting things
packed and shipped. I'll take that much of a vacation now. Then, in
April, we'll go abroad for a real honeymoon and take Father Davy with
us. I'd propose that now, but the seas are stormy in December and
January and we mustn't risk it for him. But, let's not wait! Why should
we? Now, honestly, why should we?"
The girl turned her face, with a strange little look of appeal, toward
her father, to meet such a look of entire comprehension as stirred her
to the depths. Suddenly, obeying an impulse she did not understand, she
drew herself gently away from Craig, rose and went to the figure in the
big chair opposite. She sat down on the arm and, bending, dropped her
face upon the fatherly shoulder, hiding it there. Craig sat perfectly
still, watching the pair, as Father Davy put up a thin, white hand and
patted the dark head. Then the two men smiled at each other.
After a while Craig got up and quietly left the room.
By and by Father Davy whispered: "What is it, dear? You're not ready?
You shall not be hurried. Or is it----"
She spoke into his ear. "I want to go back home--and earn--and
earn--enough to----"
"Can you earn it, daughter? Can you ever get enough ahead to provide
what you would like? And meanwhile--he wants you very much, my dear. I
think I know more of his heart than you do, in way. Last winter we had
certain talks that showed me a little of that. Would it be such a blow
to pride to do as he asks? Unless--in other ways you are not ready. If
your love for him isn't quite mature enough yet----"
"Oh, it isn't that; it's mature enough. It--it hasn't grown, in spite of
me, all this year like--a--tumbleweed"--her voice was a little
breathless--"not to have got its growth----"
"Its first growth," amended her father, with a meaning smile.
She nodded. "But--if you could know how I want--time to make the most
of--what mother left me. I could do so much if I just had time. If I
used it now I should have to use it up so fast! There'll be fifty
dollars left when we get back. I could almost make that do, if--no, of
course I couldn't. But I could earn more. O Father Davy, is it wrong of
me to be so proud?"
"Not wrong, my girl, but very natural, I suppose. Yet to me--well, dear,
I hardly know how to say what I feel. I confess I should like to see you
married to this man. Life is--so short----"
They sat together in silence for a time; then Georgiana slipped back
into the seat where she had been.
Presently Father Davy said that it had been a full day, and that he
thought he should be fitter for the morrow if he should go to bed.
Georgiana went up with him, saw him comfortably resting, listened while
he whispered something in her ear as she bent above him, kissed him with
her heart on her lips, and finally stole like a mouse down the stairs
again.
When she came into the library once more it was to find herself in arms
which held her close. "Do you think I don't understand, my dearest?"
said the low voice which had such power to move her. "Do you think I
don't respect and love you for your perfectly natural feeling about it
all? But, Georgiana, you bring me a dowry bigger than any I could ask
for--the inheritance from such a father as he is--and from the mother
who gave you all he left her to give. What are towels and tablecloths--I
don't know what it is brides bring!--beside such things as these? Won't
you give me the real thing, and let me furnish the ones that don't
count? Dear, if you could know the pleasure there is for me in the very
thought of buying you--a hat!"
She could but smile, his tone put so much awe into the word. Suddenly
she grew whimsical; it was so like Georgiana to do that when she was
deeply stirred!
"What do you suppose that hat was made of, I wore here?" she asked him.
"I'll tell you. I found the shape for twenty-five cents at the village
milliner's. I cut it down and sewed it up again into another shape. Then
I hunted through the old 'Semi-Annuals'; you don't know what those are,
do you? I found a piece of velvet that had been a flounce. I steamed it
and covered the shape. Then I had to have some trimming. It came from an
old evening cloak of my Cousin Jeannette's--a bit of gilt, a silk rose,
some ribbon from--I can't tell you what it came from, but it had to be
dyed to match the velvet. I couldn't quite get the shade. But the hat,
when it was done, wasn't so bad."
"Where is it now?"
"Upstairs in my room."
"Would you mind getting it?"
She laughed, hesitated, finally ran upstairs and down again, the hat in
hand. Pausing before an old gilt mirror in the hall she put it on, then
came to him, lifting her head with a proud and merry look which bade
him beware how he might venture to criticise the work of her hands.
Adjusting his eyeglasses with care, he viewed it judicially. "It looks
very nice to me," he said. "Suppose you keep it on and put on a coat and
let me take you out in the car for a few minutes. There's a certain
window uptown I should like to look at, with you."
"I have no coat," she said steadily, and now the colour ebbed a little
from her warm cheek, "except the one that belongs with the suit I wore.
It's short; it wouldn't do to wear with a dress like this."
"I see." Suddenly he came close again, gently lifted the hat from the
dark masses of her hair, laid it carefully on a table near by, and drew
her with him to a broad, high-backed couch at one side of the fire.
"I can see," he said, very quietly, "that you and I have much to do in
getting to know each other. Let's lose no time in beginning. Listen,
while I try to tell you what marriage means to me--and to find out what
it means to you."
It was a long talk, and, by the kindness of the fates which rule over
the irregular schedule of the men of Craig's profession, an
uninterrupted one. Long before it was over Georgiana learned many new
things concerning the man who was to be her husband, not the least of
which was his power of making others see as he saw, feel as he felt, and
believe, from first to last, in his absolute integrity of motive. And
when he told her what he thought he could do for her father if he should
have him under his eye during the coming winter, the period which was
always so long and trying for the sensitive frame of the invalid, whose
resisting powers were at their lowest when the winter winds were
blowing, she gave way and the question was settled.
But she did not give way in everything after all, nor did he ask her to
do so. When he suggested details of preparation, and she shook her head,
he smiled and told her it should all be as she wished. And when he said,
very gently, that he hoped she would let him provide her with the means
to buy whatever she might need, because everything that he had was hers
already, he took with a submission that was all grace her refusal to use
a penny of his until she should bear his name. If he made certain
reservations of his own as to what might happen when he should hold the
right, that did not show.
"So that I get you, dearest," he said at the end of the evening, just
before he let her go, "I am willing to take you in any sort of package
you may select for yourself. Personally it seems to me that jeweller's
cotton is the most appropriate background for you, if you won't have a
satin-and-velvet case!"
At which Georgiana laughed, and assured him that she was no real jewel,
only one of the secondary stones, and uncut at that. The answer she got
to this sent her off upstairs with thrilling pulses, to lie awake for a
long time, recalling his voice and look as he said the few suddenly
grave words which had given her a glimpse of his bare heart.