ON THE GREY PIAZZA
When Herbert left the house for that moonlight walk with Louie, he had
no idea of doing what he finally did do. He felt elated that he had
outwitted Fred, who he was sure had intended seeing Louie home, in the
carriage, most likely, if he did say the walk was what one needed after
so much heat and excitement. He might have added dancing, too, and such
dancing—more like a bear than a man, Herbert thought, and wondered how
Louie liked it.
She was very silent, while he, too, did not care to talk much at first.
He was satisfied to have Louie to himself, away from all the cads who
had dangled after her, and, more than all, away from Fred, who, he
believed, had shown her more attention than he had shown in his life to
all the girls he had known.
What if he should really fall in love with her, and propose? She would
of course accept him. No girl in her right mind would refuse Fred
Lansing. The thought was like wormwood, and he found himself growing
more and more jealous of Fred, who was going to call on Louie that
afternoon, and his jealousy increased her value tenfold. He had always
liked her better than any girl he knew. In fact, she was the only girl
he had ever cared for at all. But, then, his knowledge of girls was
rather limited. Those from the city who had been at the party had about
them a different air from Louie, it was true, but were not half as
pretty and winsome, nor had the whole of them received as much attention
as she had, especially from Fred—confound him! He was never known to
notice a girl before, or scarcely look at one, and he would have
appropriated Louie entirely if he had not interfered and asserted his
rights.
These and similar thoughts ran swiftly through Herbert’s mind. Then they
took another turn. There was some of his father’s nature in him, and he
began to wish she was not Mr. Grey’s daughter. True, neither he nor
anyone knew anything against Mr. Grey, but his father disliked him and
suspected him, and looked down upon him. He had once been their tenant
in White’s Row, where Nancy Sharp lived, and he had heard that Mrs. Grey
had done plain sewing for his mother, and that Louie had helped her. All
this was pretty bad, and Herbert felt himself grow hot as he thought of
taking for his wife a girl who had lived in White’s Row and whose mother
had sewed for his mother.
“But I love her. I couldn’t give her to anyone else, and Fred Lansing is
quite too attentive to her. Such cold-blooded chaps as he go off quick
when they go at all,” he kept saying to himself, and jealousy of Fred
Lansing had a good deal to do with his final decision.
The village clock was striking one when they at last reached the Grey
house. The moon was now a little past the zenith, and pouring a flood of
light over everything. The piazza under the vines, with its rugs and
chairs and table, where Louie kept her books and work when sitting
there, looked very inviting, but Louie made no movement toward it. She
was going into the house, when Herbert said to her:
“Hold on a minute. Let’s sit here a while and talk. There’s a lot I want
to say to you, and the night is too fine to go indoors.”
He led her to a chair at the end of the piazza, where she sat down, and,
leaning back in a reclining position, said:
“I shall not stay here long, for I am half asleep and dead tired, so say
what you have to say, quickly, and excuse me if I shut my eyes, my lids
are so heavy. Don’t be too long and prosy. What is it? Nothing about
that bank affair, I hope. I am sick and tired hearing of it.”
Herbert would rather have looked into Louie’s eyes, which always
inspired him, but he made no protest against her closing them, and
thought how lovely she was with her long, dark lashes, resting on her
cheeks and the light which came in patches through the vines making her
face like a piece of marble. He wanted to kiss her, but the time had not
come yet. She was queer about some things, and would resent it unless he
had a right, which he meant to have before he left her.
It was a little difficult to begin, and he was not quite sure whether he
wanted to commit himself or not, but after sitting a few moments in
silence, watching her and gloating over her beauty, which was sure to be
his own if he chose, he put his hand on hers, which lay on the arm of
the chair. She did not move or try to take it away, and, emboldened by
this, he bent down and whispered:
“Louie, I love you.”
There was no sign that she heard, but of course she did, and he went on
to say, that he had loved her ever since she was a little girl and
chased him up the tree, when he was about to rob a bird’s nest. It was a
boy’s love then, but now that he was nearly twenty, it was a man’s love
he offered her. He laid great emphasis on the “man,” and told her that
he wanted to be engaged—not openly at first, because his father (he
called him the governor) had some unreasonable prejudices which must be
overcome.
“Thinks the Queen’s daughter none too high up for me; but a fellow
marries for himself and not for his father,” he said, adding that he was
going to college in the autumn and it would be four years before he
could be graduated. By that time she would be nearly twenty-one and he
twenty-four, and old enough to act for himself, independent of his
father; in the meantime it would be just as well not to announce the
engagement. It would save him some unpleasantness, and her, too; as his
father would be very uncivil to her, and his mother was nearly as proud
as his father, and would be influenced by him—not because Mr. Grey had
not always been as well off as he was now, but—er— Herbert hesitated,
feeling that he could not speak of his father’s suspicions of Mr. Grey.
He had done so once and Louie had nearly torn his eyes out. He could not
risk it again, especially after all the Grey Bank had done for them. So
he continued to speak of the necessity for secrecy. She would be sure of
him and he sure of her. Of course, she would not allow attentions from
anyone, no matter who he was. There were plenty of cads who would like
to hang round her, but as his promised wife she must keep them at a
distance, even if Fred Lansing were of the number, as he might be. He
had seemed a good deal impressed at the party, but he was not a marrying
man—was as cold as marble—a terrible iceberg where women were concerned,
and his attentions would mean no more than that he was pleased for the
time.
Having had his fling at Fred, Herbert waited for some sign of assent to
what he had said. But there was none. Louie still lay with her eyes
closed, and perfectly motionless. Nothing had moved her, neither his
words of love nor the honor he felt he was conferring upon her, nor what
he had said of her father’s not having always been as rich as he was
now. She was breathing very regularly, and something in the sound made
him bend close to her with a suspicion of the truth.
“Louie,” he said. “Louie, do you hear me?”
There was no answer, and, starting up, he exclaimed, not in a whisper,
but aloud, as he grasped her shoulder, and shook her:
“Thunderation! I believe you are asleep.”
That roused her, and, opening her eyes, she stared at him for a moment
vacantly, as if wondering why he was there. Then as he said again, “I do
believe you have been asleep,” she answered, with a yawn:
“I think I have, and I don’t know at all what you have been saying. I
heard in a confused way something about that robin’s nest you tried to
break up years ago, and I half thought I had you by the collar again;
then your voice began to sound like bees humming, and I was so tired and
sleepy, I went off. I beg your pardon. It was not very polite. What have
you said to me? Anything important?”
“Great guns!” Herbert replied, not knowing whether to laugh or be angry.
“Don’t you know I have asked you to be my wife?”
She was wide awake now, with every faculty alert, and the hot blood was
staining her face, as she sat up erect and looked at him wonderingly.
She had half expected that something of this sort might happen sometime,
but not so soon. Herbert seemed more like a lover than a friend, and she
certainly cared more for him than for anyone she had ever met, if
indeed, she did not already love him. Still, it was very sudden, being
roused from a sound sleep with an offer of marriage at one o’clock in
the morning, and, besides that, a thought of Fred Lansing crossed her
mind unpleasantly, and the light faded a little from her eyes, which
drooped under Herbert’s ardent gaze.
“Asked me to be your wife?” she said at last. “Oh, no, you can’t mean
it. I am too young, not quite seventeen; and your father would not like
it. He looks upon us as dirt, I know, and has said mean things of my
father, and made insinuations worse than lies, which can be met and
contradicted.”
She was growing warm in her defence of her father, and as her warmth
increased so did Herbert’s.
“I don’t care for a hundred fathers when you are in the scale,” he said.
“I know he has acted mean at times, but after yesterday he will do
better, and if he don’t, I want _you_ and am going to have you!”
Then very rapidly he repeated in substance and with some additions what
he had said to her when she was asleep. She was listening attentively,
and managing to get a tolerably clear idea of his meaning and wishes,
although they were somewhat confusing. She was to promise to marry him
as soon as he was graduated, when they would go abroad for a year or
more, and see everything there was to see in the Old World. In the
meantime she was to persuade her father to send her to some finishing
school, either in Boston or New York, where she would be rooted and
grounded in everything his wife ought to know of the society into which
she would be introduced. He did not say this in so many words, but that
was what he meant, and he went on to say that the engagement must be
kept a secret, partly because his father would make it unpleasant for
him and for her if he knew it, and partly because if either he or she
changed her or his mind, it would be better not to have a prior
engagement known; not that he could change—that was impossible; and it
was equally impossible that she could; but it was well to guard against
contingencies.
He further intimated that during the years of their engagement she was
to receive but little attention from the other sex, but keep herself
wholly for him. Just what he was to do in that respect was not quite
plain, and it struck Louie as a kind of one-sided affair. A secret
engagement did not commend itself to her, and she said so at once, and
that she did not like the way Herbert talked, as if she were not quite
his equal and must be polished to become so.
“You had better leave me and take some city girl, who is up to your
standard and your father’s,” she said hotly, with a flash in her eyes
which Herbert knew was dangerous.
He had blundered somehow and must commence again. “I say, Lou,” he
began, “don’t be so peppery. I mean all right, but am awkward telling
it. I love you. I want you to be my wife. I don’t care for father, nor
anything. Listen to me,” he continued, as she made a movement to get up.
He put her back in her chair and urged his cause, until her scruples
began to give way. He seemed a part of her life. He was young, and
handsome, and masterful in his pleading. He was Judge White’s son, and
that went for something. The trip to Europe was very alluring, although
four long years in the distance, and she was at last overcome by his
eloquence, and by the fatigue which made her weak to resist or to reason
clearly.
“Then it is settled,” he said, triumphantly. “You are to be my wife, and
for the present no one is to know it but ourselves. We are to appear to
the world as we always have, the best of friends—lovers, if they choose
to call us so; they have done that, you know, but the secret is ours.”
He stooped to kiss her, as a seal to their betrothal, but she drew her
head back quickly and put up her hands, with a warning gesture.
“No, Herbert,” she said. “You cannot kiss me till the world knows we are
engaged. I do not consider myself fully pledged till then, although I
shall keep my promise.”
Herbert knew she was in earnest, and stood a moment aghast at being
denied what he felt he had a right to claim. He was not accustomed to
opposition, and a frown settled on his face, as she said in the tone in
which she used to command him when they were children:
“Now you must really go, or I shall fall asleep again, and hark! the
clock is striking two, and I do believe I hear father coming. Yes, there
he is,”—she continued, as the front door opened and her father appeared,
calling to her:
“Daughter, come in. Do you know what time it is?”
“Yes, father, I’m coming,” Louie replied, waving her hand to Herbert,
who went down the steps farthest from Mr. Grey, so as not to speak to
him in passing.
He was not in a mood to talk to anyone, and wanted to be alone, and
think over what he had done, and decide if he had acted wisely in being
so precipitate.
Meanwhile Louie went to her father, who said:
“Was that young White, hurrying down the walk as if he had been stealing
sheep? or was it a lamb he was after?” he added, facetiously, his love
of humor coming to the surface.
He had always been proud of Herbert’s evident liking for Louie, and
nothing would have pleased him better than to know there was an
engagement between them. This Louie suspected, and wanted to tell him
what had passed between herself and Herbert, but her promise restrained
her, and she answered:
“He brought a lamb back to the fold, and waited a little till the
shepherd appeared.”
Then with a good-night she hurried to her room and tried to sleep. But
the excitement of the day and evening had driven her drowsiness away,
and the twitter of birds was heard outside her window, and the early sun
was stealing into her room before she fell into a troubled sleep, in
which she dreamed, sometimes of Herbert, sometimes of Fred Lansing, but
oftener of the scene of the morning, which she seemed to be living over
again, with this difference: that now it was her father’s bank the mob
surrounded, with darker, angrier faces than she had ever seen before,
while she stood in their midst alone, vainly trying to stem the tide,
which bore her at last off her feet and away into darkness and
unconsciousness, from which she at last awoke bathed in perspiration,
with a cry upon her lips for Herbert to help her.