MARY JANE’S DISCOVERY.
“All yet seems well, and if it ends so meet,
The bitter past more welcome is the sweet.”
It is a sultry August evening; Mary Jane, the upper housemaid, much
refreshed by her comfortable tea, is sitting at an open window,
gossiping with the head laundry-maid, and unpicking a brown merino
dress, which she is praising to the skies.
“Real French, four shillings a yard. We all got dresses when Sir
Reginald was married. I’ve had this three winters, and thanks to the
lining, there’s a good three winters’ more wear in it yet. I would
have left it as it is, only it’s old-fashioned you see,” holding it up
with a deprecating gesture. “Parker is going to lend me one of Lady
Fairfax’s for a pattern, that cream-coloured one; she had it on on
Sunday.”
“Eh,” said her companion--whose fingers were equally busy, giving some
startling finishing touches to a Dolly Varden hat--“but it will never
suit _you_. You’re too plump, Mary Jane; what looks well on a slip of
a girl like her is nothing to go by; one of Miss Ferrars’ dresses now
would be more your style. That rose and gray thing, with the kilted
skirt, and the plaster up the front, for instance. This brown, piped
with red, and red bows like hers, would look fine and fashionable.”
“Maybe you are right,” replied Mary Jane, putting her thimble in her
mouth and looking at her friend reflectively. “I’ll have a look at it
this evening whilst they are at dinner. The gray one did you say?”
“See, here they come! the whole riding party!” exclaimed the
laundry-maid with animation. “Just look, Polly, and you’ll see Sir
Reginald will never offer to lift my lady off her horse, he leaves it
to Mr. Geoffrey. See, there, I told you so! Ain’t they just a queer
couple? I can’t make them out. If they were old, or if one of them
was ugly even, you might understand. They do say,” she continued
confidentially, “as how Sir Reginald never meant to marry her, nor
anyone, only she was his ward and he thought that it would be the best
way to look after her, but that he don’t care two straws about her; he
hates womankind, Cox says.”
“Well, I’m sure,” replied Mary Jane, with a toss of her head, “if that
sweet young lady isn’t good enough for him, I should like to know
what he wants more! She’s too good for him, I’m thinking; that’s what
ails him! He may be very handsome, and a great fighter--and he is a
grand-looking young gentleman--but I think he treats her shameful, if
all be true, never speaking to her nor looking at her no more nor if
she were a marble statue set up in the corner. I’ll never forget how
good she was to me when I had a sore hand last winter, dressing it her
own self every day, and always speaking to me so nice and kind all the
time. Dear, dear! If Philip Banks was to turn out such a husband as
hers I should cry off, I can tell you,” she concluded, with a decided
slap of her bare hand on the stone window-sill. “I did hear,” she
continued, “as how he was very fond of her once. I was sick and at home
when they came to Looton, but they say as he downright worshipped her
just at first. Mrs. Morris herself told me, but I don’t believe it. I
never saw no signs of it. Seeing’s believing to my mind. Laws! what’s
this in the lining? A letter, I declare! It must have run down from
the pocket-hole. My stars, Johanna, whatever shall I do?” turning a
very dismayed countenance to her friend. “It’s a letter Lady Fairfax
gave me to post a good three years ago to Sir Reginald. I remember now
quite well reading the address. She seemed so terribly put out that the
post-bag had gone, and as I was going down to the village, I offered to
take it along with three or four from the servants’ hall. I put them
all in my pocket, and this has slipped into the lining instead. What
_am_ I to do?” she asked with breathless volubility.
“I would ask Mrs. Morris, if I were you. There she is in the passage
now; run and catch her.”
Mrs. Morris said:
“Take it to Sir Reginald after dinner, and tell him how it happened;
honesty is the best policy.”
“Not for millions! I’ll take it to my lady, if you like. She could not
scold if she tried ever so.”
“He won’t say a word to you either, Mary Jane. He is just his father
all over. There never was a quieter nor a kinder master; and, besides,
how could anyone scold you for what was an accident?”
“I tell you, Mrs. Morris, I’m afraid of my life of him. I see him every
morning coming down before seven. He passes me just as if I was a
sweeping brush. Now if it was Mr. Geoffrey--he always has a word and a
joke--I’m not a bit afraid of _him_!”
“Mr. Geoffrey is a good deal too fond of joking and jesting with
servants and keeping them from their work; and you will just take
that letter and give it to Sir Reginald before you sleep to-night,”
concluded Mrs. Morris authoritatively.
“But he looks so stern and severe, I shall just sink into the ground if
he gives me one of those sharp looks of his.”
“Don’t you talk rubbish, Mary Jane; go and give up that letter after
dinner, and be off to your rooms now.”
* * * * *
Dinner over, the laundry-maid came into the servants’ hall, and
whispered to her reluctant friend:
“Now is your time, Polly. They are all in the pleasure-ground except
Sir Reginald, and he’s writing in the library, Thomas says. Just you go
and give a knock at the door, and hand in the letter; he can’t _eat_
you. I’ll go with you as far as the swing-door,” she added generously,
“and wait.”
With loudly-beating heart, Mary Jane arrived at the library-door,
knocked, and entered. Her master was writing at a table by the light
of a reading-lamp. He looked up, and gazed into the shadow for some
seconds before he exactly made her out.
Then, laying down his pen, he said:
“Well, what is your business? One of the servants, are you not?”
There was more of the “orderly-room” in his manner than was altogether
pleasant. His dealings with soldiers’ wives were short, sharp, and
decisive; the very unruly women of the Seventeenth Hussars were more
afraid of three words from the Major than a hundred from the Colonel.
He imagined that Mary Jane had come to lodge some complaint, so he
repeated:
“What can I do for you? what do you want?”
“Please sir, I’m Foster, the upper housemaid, and it’s about this
letter,” said she, timidly approaching, and laying down the yellow,
crumpled missive.
“A letter,” he repeated carelessly, taking it up; but seeing the
superscription, he changed colour. “And _where_, may I ask, did you get
this?”
“Please sir, Lady Fairfax gave it to me to post more than three years
ago. It must have slipped down between the lining of my dress and
the pocket. I found it just now when I was ripping up the skirt. I’m
very sorry indeed, sir, for I remember now that Lady Fairfax was very
particular about it. I made sure I had posted it with the others.”
“Well, at any rate it was not your fault,” he exclaimed, after some
reflection, turning over the long looked for letter in his hand. “It
was honest of you to bring it to me; you might have burnt it, and said
nothing about it; and it happens to be a letter of the very greatest
consequence. Here,” said he, unlocking a drawer, “is a note instead,”
handing her ten pounds; “and see that your pockets have no holes in
them in future.”
Mary Jane received the gift with profuse and voluble thanks, as she
backed and curtseyed out of the room; and from that time forward
declared that her master was the nicest, pleasantest, most generous
gentleman in England.
It is needless to say that Sir Reginald lost no time in tearing open
the letter, which ran as follows:
“MY DEAR HUSBAND,
“You will be surprised to get a letter from me, considering my very
recent heartless wicked treatment of you, and more surprised still to
hear that I am writing to entreat your forgiveness. Ever since you
left I have been so very, very miserable, and as each day has passed
I have been more firmly convinced of your innocence, and that I have
been the most unjust and ungenerous of wives. You will, I know, make
allowance for my youth and a naturally jealous hot temper. These are
but feeble excuses; no one but you, who have always been so good to
me, would entertain them for an instant. I sometimes think I must have
been mad; any way, whatever _you_ may do I shall never forgive myself.
But you will pardon me, I know; not only because of your promise,
but because--how can I tell you? I had a bad fainting fit the other
day, and Morris was frightened and sent for the doctor; he says that
before summer, all being well, there will be a little inmate in the
nursery here. I have not told this great secret to anyone, neither
must you. Long before summer your letter will have come, won’t it?
Once this has fairly started, I shall count the very days till the
answer comes back. If none comes I will know that you _cannot_ forgive
me, and indeed I don’t deserve that you should. But you _will_ write
to me a kind letter too, my darling Regy. Think how very lonely I am,
I have no one but you in all the world. The post is just going out, so
I must conclude. I direct this by the address you left with Helen, so
it will be sure to reach you safely. Mind you write by return mail to
“Your loving and penitent wife,
“ALICE FAIRFAX.”
When he had read this to the end he laid it down, and began to pace
about the room in great agitation.
“What a brute I must seem to her! What must she have thought of me all
these years? Why, no later than yesterday”--he paused in his walk,
overwhelmed with the recollection--“I rejected her overtures for peace.
I was savagely rude to her. My poor little Alice, you had indeed said
quite enough, more than enough,” he muttered, resuming his walk. “What
must she think of me? How can she have borne with me all this time? I
refused, yes, point-blank, to kiss her, idiot that I was. I might have
guessed at something of this kind, only that my devilish pride had
strangled my common sense; and all this frightful misunderstanding was
owing to this wretched bit of paper, this letter, that I would have
given five years of my life for, and she, poor girl, has been breaking
her heart about, and all the time it has been lying inside the skirt
of that woman’s dress. After all,” he continued, taking it up, “it is
a very dear and precious letter; I would not part with it, late as
it comes, for a field-marshal’s bâton.” He read it twice over again,
lingering on almost every word, then folded it up very carefully and
put it in his waistcoat-pocket as he walked to the window. “No wonder,”
said he, “she gave me a cool reception; I wonder what sort of one she
would give me _now_ if I could catch her alone? She ought to hate me
pretty well by this time, it is not _my_ fault if she does not. But she
likes me a little bit still. She must, or she never could have stood
the way I have treated her. If she only cares for me just one quarter
as much as I care for her we shall do very well,” he thought to himself
joyfully, as he stepped out of the window and joined the party who were
sitting in the pleasure-ground, basking in the moonlight, and inhaling
the soft bracing air, heavy with the perfume of syringa, roses, and
new-mown hay.
Mr. and Mrs. Mayhew, Miss Saville, and Mary were reposing in various
garden-chairs.
“Where is Alice?” asked her husband abruptly.
“Oh, she and Geoffrey have gone to gather pears for the public weal.”
“What, at this hour!” he exclaimed, standing at the top of the steps,
gazing after two figures who were rapidly disappearing in the direction
of the garden. “Small chance of a _tête-à-tête_ with Alice to-night,”
he said to himself as he pulled his moustache thoughtfully.
Five minutes later, Geoffrey came running back alone; breathlessly he
jerked out: “_Such_ a trick as I’ve played her! She offered to race me
to the big pear-tree, each starting from the garden-gate, and going one
north the other south; I agreed, and when I saw her well started south
I just came home! What a state she will be in when she finds herself
alone at the end of the ghost-walk! She says she is _not_, but I
believe she is, horribly afraid of ghosts and bogies; and if she meets
the cavalier who is said to stalk about the garden won’t it be fun? I
only wish I had thought of it in time, I’d have dressed up. It pays her
off nicely for some of the pretty little jokes she has practised on
me. It’s not too late yet”--snatching up a shawl and a garden-hat and
commencing a toilet.
“I can’t say that I exactly see the humour of the situation,” said
Reginald, as, springing down the steps and vaulting lightly over an
iron railing, he set off by a short cut to the garden at a run.
“Active fellow, is he not?” observed Geoffrey, removing the shawl in
which he had already enveloped himself. “But this alacrity in joining
his wife, in the present overcharged state of the domestic atmosphere,
is something quite new. The sky is not going to fall, is it?” he added,
looking up interrogatively.
“No; but really, Geoffrey, you shouldn’t have left her,” remonstrated
Helen. “The garden is an awful eerie place by moonlight, I should not
care to take a solitary walk there myself.”
* * * * *
The pear-tree, which was to have been the goal, was the pear-tree _par
excellence_ of the whole garden; it was trained along a wall covered
with fruit-trees, beneath which ran a broad gravel terrace, approached
by several flights of steps, one of which was exactly opposite this
particular tree.
Alice, breathless and triumphant, had arrived first at the foot of the
steps. She looked up and down the broad walk; no sign of Geoffrey.
“How very odd,” she thought.
Presently she heard his rapidly-approaching footsteps, and, mounting
the terrace, began to gather pears with much deliberation. Hearing him
arrive, she never troubled to turn her head, merely remarking as she
reached up for a lovely, yellow, corpulent pear:
“Snail! You ought to be ashamed of yourself. I could trundle a
wheelbarrow faster than you can run.”
“Could you indeed?” replied her husband, putting his arm round her
slender waist.
“Geoffrey, how dare----Reginald!” she gasped, dropping all the pears.
“_I_ may _dare_, may I not?” said he, taking her in his arms and giving
her twenty kisses. “Look here,” said he, smiling at her indignant eyes
and crimson cheeks, “I’ve just had a letter from you, my darling,”
producing the letter and hurriedly telling her the story.
“And the other one I wrote to Afghanistan?” she asked breathlessly.
“That I never heard of till now; the Afridis made short work of our
letters.”
“Then you have never had a line from me till to-day?” she cried,
backing towards the wall and looking at him with dilated eyes.
“Never, since I left Cannes.”
“Then oh, Regy, _what_ must you have thought of me?”
“Just what I have been asking myself, _what_ can you have thought of
me? No wonder you called me harsh, cruel, and tyrannical; such names
were too mild a term for me. What an unmanly, vindictive wretch I must
have appeared! And you, you richly deserve the name of the ‘patient
Grizzel.’ Don’t you think so?” drawing her towards him by both hands.
“Come, tell me what you thought of me for never answering your letter.”
Too overwhelmed to speak, she stood dumb before him, with both her
little trembling hands in his.
“You can’t think,” he went on, “how I hoped and hoped for even one
line, after that Cheetapore affair had been cleared up. Surely then I
learnt that ‘hope deferred maketh the heart sick.’”
Seeing the ready tears in Alice’s eyes he stopped.
“Why, you little goose, you are never going to cry _now_, are you? It
was not your fault I did not get your letter. I have it safe now,
and I am the happiest man in England this instant; that is to say,”
lowering his voice almost to a whisper, “if you will forgive me, Alice,
and if you love me still?”
“Forgive you!” she echoed, speaking with an effort, “it is for you to
forgive _me_. Do forgive me,” she pleaded, with lovely beseeching eyes;
“it cost me more than _you_. My punishment seemed at times greater than
I could bear.”
At the mere recollection of what she had endured, two large tears that
could no longer be suppressed escaped from her eyelashes, and rolled
down her pale cheeks.
“My Alice, my love, you were forgiven long, long ago; only it seemed
to me, till now, that you did not want my forgiveness. You would not
speak, and I could not; I tied my hands most effectually that day on
Southsea pier. And, after all, Alice, you would not have respected
me if I had not required some apology, or if I had tendered you a
forgiveness you had never asked for, after the way you broke up our
home and turned me adrift. No, my darling,” in answer to a piteous
look, “I am not scolding you. I never, never will be rough or rude
to you again, if you will promise to forgive me for the barbarous
way I have treated you lately. When I think of the thousand-and-one
rudenesses I’ve been guilty of--intentionally too--I feel that I am
asking a great deal. If I had only your capacity for blushing, you
would see how thoroughly ashamed I feel. Am I to be forgiven?” leaning
towards her.
“Of course you are.”
“And,” speaking still more earnestly, “you like me a little in spite of
all?”
A deep blush was his only answer for some seconds; then, with an
effort, she raised her truthful eyes to his, and said:
“You know I do; you need not have asked. It is,” she pursued, with
emotion, “far more a question whether--whether you care for me. I know
you never will, never can, as you once did; but it has seemed to me at
times that you almost hated me.”
“Indeed?” with a beaming smile long foreign to his countenance; “I see
you are more easily imposed upon than ever. You know very well, it is
patent to even Geoffrey, that I have always loved you exactly three
times better than you love me. It is not in your nature to love as I
do, though I never make much fuss about my feelings; still you may as
well know that you are more to me, ten times over, than anything in
the world. Even at the worst of times it has always been the same.
What troubled me most, when I thought I was dying, was, _not_ my many
sins and shortcomings, _not_ the thought of a future world, _not_ what
ought to come first with all of us, my soul; no, it was you, that I
might only see you once more, even for an instant, was the prayer, the
thought, that never left me night or day. I will not conceal from you,
Alice, that I did my very best to stifle recollection, to forget you,
to throw my whole heart into my profession. It was no good; nothing,
not a draught of the Egyptian nepenthe itself would have banished you
from my heart. When I first went to India I used to take long headlong
rides, half in hopes of galloping away from my thoughts, half in hopes
of killing myself. I sometimes think I was a little mad then.”
“Reginald, you must have been,” she exclaimed with conviction.
“Yes; you don’t half know how miserable I’ve been without you. Well, I
quieted down in time, and when the fighting came off I took it out of
myself in that way. But wherever I was, you were seldom absent from my
mind; whether alone in my quarters, or sitting round a noisy camp fire,
or on a still starry night, on the line of march, your face was ever
before me. As to never caring for you as before, I believe I love you
better--yes, better than when we were first married; though had anyone
suggested such a possibility at the time, I would have throttled him
on the spot. But do not,” he continued with a smile, “spread the fact
among the young married ladies of your acquaintance; they might try and
follow your example, with scarcely such happy results. Lovers’ quarrels
are not _always_ the renewing of love.”
“How can you joke on such a subject, Regy?” she asked almost
inarticulately.
“Well, then, I’ll be serious once more. Never, as long as you live,
doubt my love for you, Alice. Do you believe in it now?”
“I do,” she whispered, “and you have made me very, very happy.”
“Then you can’t refuse to make _me_ happy! You have not given me one
kiss yet, remember, and you have three years’ arrears to make up. To
begin with, I’ll take the one you offered me the other night now.”
“I daresay you will,” she replied demurely, with a spice of her old
spirit. “Have you ever heard, ‘He that will not when he may,’ etc.? And
you took quite enough just now to last you for a long time,” she added,
with a deep blush.
“You are not going to put me on allowance, are you? I tell you plainly
I won’t stand it. After offering me a kiss you never can again pretend
you are shy. Now, candidly, _can_ you? I’m afraid you are a little
impostor,” quietly insinuating his arm round her waist.
“I see you are as great a tease as ever, at any rate, Reginald,” she
exclaimed tragically. “If you ever dare to allude to my foolish,
idiotical offer, I won’t say what I shall do to you. I am not an
impostor, and you know very well I _am_ shy; you often said it--it----”
“Well, go on, I would not commence a sentence I was afraid to finish if
I were you!”
“Well, that it was my only fault--there!”
“And so it was; and as you are cured now of course you are perfect.”
A silence. At length she said:
“Were you really going away to-morrow, Regy?”
“Yes, indeed I was. I have been lingering on here from day to day,
hoping for one little word, just one, and it did not come. I would have
gone back into the world a hard, embittered, cynical man. You smile,
you think I am that already?”
“Tell me, Regy, will you be the very same Regy I knew of old, and will
the rude, cold, stern guardian I have met lately, and--I tell you in
confidence that I am a little afraid of--will he go?”
“He will,” replied her husband, with quiet decision. “He will take his
departure along with the haughty young lady with whom he gets on so
well. Are you sorry? Are you sorry to lose your guardian and find your
husband?”
“Sorry!” she repeated, taking the flower out of his button-hole with
the calmest air of rightful appropriation. “Do I _look_ sorry?
By-the-way, for the third time of asking, you may as well give me my
wedding-ring”--fastening the flower in the front of her dress, and
holding out a small white palm. “How glad I shall be to see it again,”
she exclaimed, as she eagerly watched him disengaging it from his chain.
“Here it is,” handing it to her; “it is a travelled ring.”
“Let me see”--turning it to the moonlight and scrutinising it
closely--“if it is my own. Yes, there is the ‘R. A.’ entwined. Now
please to put it on.”
“Alice,” he said, taking her little ring-less hand in his and slipping
it on her finger, “remember, you are not to remove it again.”
“I never will, you may be very sure, as long as I live, and when I die
it shall be buried with me. See, it is quite too big for me now,”
holding up her hand.
“It is indeed,” he reluctantly owned to himself, as he looked at the
fragile, almost transparent fingers held up for his inspection. An
agonising thought flitted through his brain and turned his heart, as it
were, to ice. “Had he gained her but to lose her after all?”
“Why do you shiver?” cried Alice gaily. “Why do you look so odd--you
are not ill, are you?”
“Ill? Not I!” recovering himself with an effort. “It is probably your
friend the goose walking over my grave.”
“Don’t talk of graves,” she said with a shudder, drawing nearer to him
involuntarily, and laying her hand on his shoulder. “You don’t know,”
she added in a low voice, “what a good wife I am going to be. You have
given me back my wedding-ring, and in return I promise solemnly to be
truthful, loving, and obedient as long as I live. Nothing but death can
ever come between us now,” she added tremulously, as, stealing her arm
round his neck, she gave him the tenderest and shyest of kisses.
“You little witch!” he exclaimed, returning it with interest. “Do you
know that that is almost the first kiss you have ever given me of your
own accord, Lady Fairfax? What a change a few hours can make in one’s
life! This morning, mine seemed so empty, so cheerless; just what it
has been for the last three years. I had no one to look after, or care
about much, except myself, and I am not very fond of myself; sometimes,
I know all my faults quite as well, nay, far better than you do.”
“What are they?” she asked with a smile. “Let us compare notes.”
“I am determined to the verge of obstinacy, and beyond it. Proud to a
degree little short of insanity. Overbearing, supercilious, tenacious,
I would die sooner than yield, once I have made up my mind that I am in
the right. If I had been less blinded by my pride, I would have written
to you when Maurice was born, and saved us both two long miserable
years. How can I ever make amends to you, my darling? How can I ever
overtake these years I have left you alone?”
“Hush!” she said, “you must not abuse yourself. It has been all my
fault from first to last; it is only like you to take the blame, but
you know very well it all lies at _my_ door. But, indeed, indeed I
have been punished, and justly punished! I ought to have trusted you,
Reginald; if I had followed my first impulse I would have spared
myself many a bitter tear. I seem to have been under some malign
influence, and to have had an absolute vocation for making you and
myself miserable, that awful winter that seems so many years ago.
Since then, Time has crawled by and brought no remedies for _me_--a
blank empty future, and nothing to look back on but hateful haunting
recollections; only for Maurice I must have gone melancholy mad. You
will never leave me again, will you?
“You won’t go to Looton now?” she added suddenly.
“Yes; in fact I must. I’ll run down there for a few days and see how
everything is getting on, look into the accounts, ride over the home
farm, etc., and tell them to be ready for us at Christmas.”
“At Christmas?” she echoed in amazement.
“Yes. I shall then come back here and take you off abroad for the next
three months. You were talking of Nice the other day: will you accept
_me_ as a companion instead of your aunt? How would you like to spend
the autumn in Italy?”
“And Maurice?”
“Oh, Maurice will be made over to Helen; she will take excellent care
of him. He has had a very good time the last two years; it’s _my_ turn
now. I must have you all to myself, no rivals, small or large, which
is one reason why I don’t want to settle down at home just at present.
We should have nothing but one scene of visiting, feasting, and mutual
entertainments. Whereas, roaming about abroad, we can scorn all social
claims, spend our time as we please, and, if the worst comes to the
worst, pretend we are bride and bridegroom. If you are a good girl and
get strong and well by Christmas I shall bring you home again; if not,
I shall take you on to Egypt.”
“Egypt!” she echoed. “Why Egypt? And why do you sigh, Regy, and look
at me so wistfully?” she asked, raising her gray eyes to his fond dark
ones, that seemed to brim over with a look of anguish she could not
understand.
“I did not sigh,” he replied mendaciously. “And why not go to Egypt?
You know you have always had a craving to out-travel Helen and to see
the old Nile. Come, it is getting late, I cannot let you stay out any
longer; the dew is falling, you must go in.”
“Ah! I see you have had enough of me already,” she replied with
a pretty little shrug. “Tell me, Regy, who have you got in this
locket?--you never used to wear one.”
“Who do you think--are you jealous? A Begum who took rather a fancy to
me,” he said, opening the case and revealing herself. “As long as I had
the original I never wore it of course. I believe this locket is a kind
of talisman; it has been twice into action, for I never left it out of
my possession night or day.”
They were slowly promenading up and down the centre garden-walk, now
stopping for an instant, now again going on, this time very, very
leisurely, as it was the very last turn they were to take. On this
point Reginald was resolute, although he grudged sorely to shorten the
happiest hour he had known for years. Oblivious of all the world, and
absorbed in each other, they were approaching the gate, which suddenly
burst open, and Geoffrey, singing, “Alice, where art thou?” appeared.
“I’ve been sent,” he shouted, “to know if you mean to roost in the
pear-tree? _Where_ are the pears?” he added imperiously. “Why, what’s
all this? I do believe,” looking from one to the other, “that you two
have buried the hatchet, come off the war-path, and smoked the pipe of
peace!”
“Yes, wise and observant Geoffrey, you are right for once. We have
been the victims of an unfortunate accident that has cost us both very
dearly,” replied Reginald gravely.
“Hip, hip, hurrah!” cried Geoffrey, dancing a war-dance round them,
concluding with three wild bounds into the air.
“I really must embrace you, my dear Regy. You know I’d twice as soon
have you as Alice.” So saying he flung himself on Reginald _à la
Française_.
“No no, my dear fellow, you really must excuse me,” pushing him back.
“If you must kiss somebody, you may kiss Alice; and for your kind
congratulations, conveyed, I presume, by those wild evolutions just
now, receive my warmest thanks. Also,” he added more seriously, “for
all your well-meant but unsuccessful endeavours to reconcile us, all
the _tête-à-tête_ rides and walks you contrived. Only you are not an
old woman, you would make a superb chaperone.”
A less shrewd observer than Geoffrey could see that this assumed gaiety
covered a deeper emotion Reginald could hardly conceal.
“Well, here, Alice, is a kiss for you, by your lord and master’s kind
permission.”
“Imagine you have had it, it will do as well,” cried Alice, waving him
away with both hands.
“All right,” replied Geoffrey, rather huffed. “Imagination is no doubt
better than reality in this particular instance. I always knew if
anyone could manage you, or get you along at all in double harness,
it was our right honourable friend. But you must confess you jibbed
frightfully at starting. Plenty of the whip, that’s what you all want.
‘A woman, a dog, and a walnut-tree,
The more you beat them the better they be.’
Isn’t that so?”
“Geoffrey!” exclaimed Alice, “have you taken leave of your senses!
If people were to see you whooping and springing about they would
certainly think we kept a private lunatic asylum, and that you were
one of our most dangerous patients. Do be cautious, the moon is at the
full!”
Reginald having started off to fetch the pears, Geoffrey watched him
out of sight, and then said: “Alice, my good girl, seriously and
soberly, I never was so glad of anything in all my life. He is the best
fellow I ever knew, and ten times too good for you.”
“No one knows that better than myself,” she replied meekly, to
Geoffrey’s unbounded surprise.
“Good-night, Geoff; I’m going. Tell him to tell them; I couldn’t,” she
added, vanishing through the gateway.
“Alice has gone, Rex,” said Geoffrey, “and you are to break it
gently to the family. No one could eat pears now: leave them on the
garden-seat and come along. You and Alice are the only _pair_ they will
think of to-night.”
In a few minutes they had rejoined the party in the pleasure-ground.
“Well, what has kept you? Have you brought the pears?” inquired Helen,
languidly.
“No; but I have brought you a piece of good news instead. You can guess
what it is, can you not?”
“I can, my dear Regy,” she replied, rising hastily--her active mind
having grasped the truth in one second--and kissing him with effusion.
“I know there is only one thing that could make you look so happy.
Where is Alice?”
“This,” said Geoffrey with mock gravity, taking Reginald’s unwilling
hand, “is Petruchio. Katharina has retired. In plain English, Alice
was too bashful to return here, and desired me to accept your
congratulations as her deputy. I’ve no doubt, Helen, that you and Miss
Ferrars will find her in her room.”
Helen and Miss Ferrars were not long in acting on this hint, and found
Alice sitting in the window-sill in the moonlight, leisurely unplaiting
her long, golden-brown plaits. She received them with smiles and tears.
“I knew you would come,” she said, throwing herself into Helen’s arms;
“you have always been our good genius. You have heard it all from him,
have you not?” she whispered.
“Only a sketch--a mere outline,” Helen replied, seating herself. “I
have a vague idea that you are going abroad, that I am to have charge
of Maurice, and that we are all to meet at Looton at Christmas. The
moment I saw Regy’s face I knew what had happened. Dear boy! it does
one good to see him looking like himself once more.”
The three ladies remained talking together till the small hours, much
to the detriment of Alice and Mary’s roses, and the tale of the lost
letter was told and re-told, deplored and discussed, at least ten times
over.
The next morning Reginald started for Looton, and within a week
Sir R. and Lady Fairfax were among the fashionable departures for
the Continent, and the party at Monkswood dispersed, to reunite at
Christmas.