"THOSE EYES OF YOURS."
Not five miles away that same evening a conversation was going on which
would have interested Mrs. Middleton.
The scene was an up-stairs room in a pleasant house near the county town.
Mrs. Blake, a woman of seven or eight and forty, handsome and well
preserved, but of a high-colored type, leant back in an easy-chair lazily
unfastening her bracelets, by way of signifying that she had begun to
prepare for the night. Her two daughters were with her. Addie, the elder,
was at the looking-glass brushing her hair and half enveloped in its silky
blackness. She was a tall, graceful girl, a refined likeness of her mother.
On the rug lay Lottie, three years younger, hardly more than a growing
girl, long-limbed, slight, a little abrupt and angular by her sister's
side, her features not quite so regular, her face paler in its cloud of
dark hair. Yet there was a look of determination and power which was
wanting in Addie; and at times, when Lottie was roused, her eyes had a dark
splendor which made her sister's beauty seem comparatively commonplace and
tame.
Stretched at full length, she propped her chin on her hands and looked up
at her mother. "I don't suppose you care," she said, in a clear, almost
boyish voice.
"Not much," Mrs. Blake replied with, a smile. "Especially as I rather doubt
it."
Addie paused, brush in hand: "I really think you've made a mistake,
Lottie."
"Do you really? I haven't, though," said that young lady decidedly.
"It can't be--surely," Addie hesitated, with a little shadow on her face.
"Of course no. Is it likely?" said Mrs. Blake, as if the discussion were
closed.
"I tell you," said Lottie stubbornly, "Godfrey Hammond told me that
Percival's father was the eldest son."
"But it is Horace who has always lived at Brackenhill. Percival only goes
on a visit now and then. Every one knows," said Addie, in almost an injured
tone, "that Horace is the heir."
Lottie raised her head a little and eyed her sister intently, with
amusement, wonder, and a little scorn in her glance. Addie, blissfully
unconscious, went on brushing her hair, still with that look of anxious
perplexity.
"This is how it was," Lottie exclaimed suddenly. "Percival was just gone,
and you were talking to Horace. Up comes Godfrey Hammond, sits down by me,
and says some rubbish about consoling me. I think I laughed. Then he looked
at me out of his little, light eyes, and said that you and I seemed to get
on well with his young friends. So I said, 'Oh yes--middling.'"
"Upon my word," smiled Mrs. Blake, "you appear to have distinguished
yourself in the conversation."
"Didn't I?" said Lottie, untroubled and unabashed: "I know it struck me so
at the time. Then he said something--I forget how he put it--about our
being just the right number and pairing off charmingly. So I said, 'Oh, of
course the elder ones went together: that was only right.'"
"And what did he say?"
"Oh, he pinched his lips together and smiled, and said, 'Don't you know
that Percival is the elder?'"
"But, Lottie, that proves nothing as to his father."
"Who supposed it did? I said 'Fiddlededee! I didn't mean that: I supposed
they were much about the same age, or if Percy were a month or two older it
made no difference. I meant that Horace was the eldest son's son, so of
course he was A 1.'"
"Well?" said Addie.
"Well, then he looked twice as pleased with himself as he did before, and
said, 'I don't think Horace told you that. It so happens that Percival is
not only the elder by a month or two, as you say, but he is the son of the
eldest son.' Then I said 'Oh!' and mamma called me for something, and I
went."
Mrs. Blake and Addie exchanged glances.
"Now, could I have made a mistake?" demanded Lottie.
"It seems plain enough, certainly," her mother allowed.
"Then, could Godfrey Hammond have made a mistake? Hasn't he known the
Thornes all their lives? and didn't he say once that he was named Godfrey
after their old grandfather?"
Mrs. Blake assented.
"Then," said the girl, relapsing into her recumbent position, "perhaps
you'll believe me another time."
"Perhaps," said Mrs. Blake: "we'll see when the other time comes. If it is
as you say, it is curious." She rose as she spoke and went to the farther
end of the room. As she stood by an open drawer putting away the ornaments
which she had taken off, the candlelight revealed a shadow of perplexity
on her face which increased the likeness between herself and Addie.
Apparently, Lottie was right as to her facts. The estate was not entailed,
then, and despotic power seemed to be rather capriciously exercised by the
head of the house. If Horace should displease his grandfather--if, for
instance, he chose a wife of whom old Mr. Thorne did not approve--would his
position be very secure? Mrs. Blake was uneasy, and felt that it was very
wrong of people to play tricks with the succession to an estate like
Brackenhill.
Meanwhile, Lottie watched her sister, who was thoughtfully drawing her
fingers through her long hair. "Addie," she said, after a pause, "what will
you do if Horace isn't the heir after all?"
"What a silly question! I shan't do anything: there's nothing for me to
do."
"But shall you mind very much? You are very fond of Horace, aren't you?"
"Fond of him!" Addie repeated. "He is very pleasant to talk to, if you mean
that."
"Oh, you can't deceive me so! I believe that you are in love with him,"
said Lottie solemnly.
The color rushed to Addie's face when her vaguely tender sentiments,
indefinite as Horace's attentions, were described in this startling
fashion. "Indeed, I'm nothing of the kind," she said hurriedly. "Pray don't
talk such utter nonsense, Lottie. If you have nothing more sensible to say,
you had better hold your tongue."
"But why are you ashamed of it?" Lottie persisted: "I wouldn't be." She had
an unsuspected secret herself, but she would have owned it proudly enough
had she been challenged.
"I'm not ashamed," said Addie; "and you know nothing about being in love,
so you had better not talk about it."
"Oh yes, I do!" was the reply, uttered with Lottie's calm simplicity of
manner: "I know how to tell whether you are in love or not, Addie. What
would you do if a girl were to win Horace Thorne away from you?"
Pride and a sense of propriety dictated Addie's answer and gave sharpness
to her voice: "I should say she was perfectly welcome to him."
Lottie considered for a moment: "Yes, I suppose one might _say_ so to her,
but what would you do? Wouldn't you want to kill her? And wouldn't you die
of a broken heart?"
Addie was horrified: "I don't want to kill anybody, and I'm not going to
die for Mr. Horace Thorne. Please don't say such things, Lottie: people
never do. You forget he is only an acquaintance."
"No; I don't think you are in love with him, certainly." Lottie pronounced
this decision with the air of one who has solved a difficult problem.
"What are you talking about?" Mrs. Blake inquired, coming back, and
glancing from Addie's flushed and troubled face to Lottie's thoughtful
eyes.
"I was asking Addie if she didn't want Horace to be the heir. I know you
do, mamma--oh, just for his own sake, because you think he's the nicest,
don't you? I heard you tell him one day "--here Lottie looked up with a
candid gaze and audaciously imitated Mrs. Blake's manner--"that though we
knew his cousin _first_, he--Horace, you know--seemed to drop _so_
naturally into _all_ our ways that it was quite _delightful_ to feel that
we needn't stand on _any_ ceremony with him."
"Good gracious, Lottie! what do you mean by listening to every word I say?"
"I didn't listen--I heard," said Lottie. "I always do hear when you say
your words as if they had little dashes under them."
"Well, Horace Thorne _is_ easier to get on with than his cousin," said Mrs.
Blake, taking no notice of Lottie's mimicry.
"There, I said so: mamma would like it to be Horace. Nobody asks what I
should like--nobody thinks about me and Percival."
"Oh, indeed! I wasn't aware," said Mrs. Blake. "When is that to come off? I
dare say you will look very well in orange-blossoms and a pinafore!"
"Oh, you think I'm too young, do you? But a little while ago you were
always saying that I was grown up, and oughtn't to want any more childish
games. What was I to do?"
"Upon my word!" exclaimed Mrs. Blake. "I'll buy you a doll for a birthday
present, to keep you out of mischief."
"Too late," said Lottie from the rug. She burst into sudden laughter, loud
but not unmelodious. "What rubbish we are talking! Seventeen to-morrow, and
Addie is nearly twenty; and sometimes I think I must be a hundred!"
"Well, you are talking nonsense now," Mrs. Blake exclaimed. "Why, you baby!
only last November you would go into that wet meadow by the rectory to play
trap-and-ball with Robin and Jack. And such a fuss as there was if one
wanted to make you the least tidy and respectable!"
"Was that last November?" Lottie stared thoughtfully into space. "Queer
that last November should be so many years ago, isn't it? Poor little Cock
Robin! I met him in the lane the day before he went away. They will keep
him in jackets, and he hates them so! I laughed at him, and told him to be
a good little boy and mind his book. He didn't seem to like it, somehow."
"I dare say he didn't," said Addie, who had been silently recovering
herself: "there's no mistake about it when you laugh at any one."
"There shall be no mistake about anything I do," Lottie asserted. "I'm
going to bed now." She sprang to her feet and stood looking at her sister:
"What jolly hair you've got, Addie!"
"Yours is just as thick, or thicker," said Addie.
"Each individual hair is a good deal thicker, if you mean that.
'Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horse-hairs!' That's what Percy quoted to
me one day when I was grumbling, and I said I wasn't sure he wasn't rude.
Addie, are Horace and Percival fond of each other?"
"How can I tell? I suppose so."
"I have my doubts," said Lottie sagely. "Why should they be? There must be
something queer, you know, or why doesn't that stupid old man at
Brackenhill treat Percival as the eldest? Well, good-night." And Lottie
went off, half saying, half singing, "Who killed Cock Robin? I, said the
Sparrow--with my bow and arrow." And with a triumphant outburst of "_I_
killed Cock Robin!" she banged the door after her.
There was a pause. Then Addie said, "Seventeen to-morrow! Mamma, Lottie
really is grown-up now."
"Is she?" Mrs. Blake replied doubtfully. "Time she should be, I'm sure."
Lottie had been a sore trial to her mother. Addie was pretty as a child,
tolerably presentable even at her most awkward age, glided gradually into
girlhood and beauty, and finally "came out" completely to Mrs. Blake's
satisfaction. But Lottie at fifteen or sixteen was her despair--"Exactly
like a great unruly boy," she lamented. She dashed through her lessons
fairly well, but the moment she was released she was unendurable. She
whistled, she sang at the top of her voice, and plunged about the house in
her thick boots, till she could be off to join the two boys at the rectory,
her dear friends and comrades. Robin Wingfield, the elder, was her junior
by rather more than a year; and this advantage, especially as she was tall
and strong for her age, enabled her fully to hold her own with them. Nor
could Mrs. Blake hinder this friendship, as she would gladly have done, for
her husband was on Lottie's side.
"Let the girl alone," he said. "Too big for this sort of thing? Rubbish!
The milliner's bills will come in quite soon enough. And what's amiss with
Robin and Jack? Good boys as boys go, and she's another; and if they like
to scramble over hedges and ditches together, let them. For Heaven's sake,
Caroline, don't attempt to keep her at home: she'll certainly drive me
crazy if you do. No one ever banged doors as Lottie does: she ought to
patent the process. Slams them with a crash which jars the whole house, and
yet manages not to latch them, and the moment she is gone they are swinging
backward and forward till I'm almost out of my senses. Here she comes down
stairs, like a thunderbolt.--Lottie, my dear girl, I'm sure it's going to
be fine: better run out and look up those Wingfield boys, I think."
So the trio spent long half-holidays rambling in the fields; and on these
occasions Lottie might be met, an immense distance from home, in the
shabbiest clothes and wearing a red cap of Robin's tossed carelessly on her
dark hair. Percival once encountered them on one of these expeditions.
Lottie's beauty was still pale and unripe, like those sheathed buds which
will come suddenly to their glory of blossom, not like rosebuds which have
a loveliness of their own; but the young man was struck by the boyish
mixture of shyness and bluntness with which she greeted him, and attracted
by the great eyes which gazed at him from under Robin's shabby cap. When he
and Horace went to the Blakes' he amused himself idly enough with the
school-girl, while his cousin flirted with Addie. He laughed one day when
Mrs. Blake was unusually troubled about Lottie's apparel, and said
something about "a sweet neglect." But the soul of Lottie's mamma was not
to be comforted with scraps of poetry. How could it be, when she had just
arraigned her daughter on the charge of having her pockets bulging
hideously, and had discovered that those receptacles overflowed with a
miscellaneous assortment of odds and ends, the accumulations of weeks,
tending to show that Lottie and Cock Robin, as she called him, had all
things in common? How could it be, when Lottie was always outgrowing her
garments in the most ungainly manner, so that her sleeves seemed to retreat
in horror from her wrists and from her long hands, tanned by sun and wind,
seamed with bramble-scratches and smeared with school-room ink? Once Lottie
came home with an unmistakable black eye, for which Robin's cricket-ball
was accountable. Then, indeed, Mrs. Blake felt that her cup of bitterness
was full to overflowing, though Lottie did assure her, "You should have
seen Jack's eye last April: his was much more swollen, and all sorts of
colors, than mine." It was impossible to avoid the conclusion that Jack
must have been, to say the least of it, unpleasant to look at. Percival
happened to come to the house just then, and was tranquilly amused at the
good lady's despair. It was before the Blakes knew much of Horace, and she
had not yet discovered that Percival's cousin was so much more friendly
than Percival himself; so she made the latter her confidant. He recommended
a raw beefsteak with a gravity worthy of a Spanish grandee. He was not
allowed to see Lottie, who was kept in seclusion as being half culprit,
half invalid, and wholly unpresentable; but as he was going away the
servant gave him a little note in Lottie's boyish scrawl:
"DEAR PERCIVAL: Mamma was cross with Robin and sent him away
do tell him I'm all right, and he is not to mind he will be
sure to be about somewhere It is very stupid being shut up
here Addie says she can't go running about giving messages
to boys and Papa said if he saw him he should certainly
punch his head so please tell him he is not to bother
himself about me I shall soon be all right."
Percival went away, smiling a little at his letter and at Lottie herself.
Just as he reached the first of the fields which were the short cut from
the house, he spied Robin lurking on the other side of the hedge, with Jack
at his heels. He halted, and called "Robin! Robin Wingfield! I want to
speak to you."
The boy hesitated: "There's a gate farther on."
Coming to the gate, Percival rested his arms on it and looked at Robin. The
boy was not big for his age, but there was a good deal of cleverness in his
upturned freckled face. "I've a message for you," said the young man.
"From her?" Robin indicated the Blakes' house with a jerk of his head.
"Yes. She asked me to tell you that she is all right, though, of course,
she can't come out at present. She made sure I should find you somewhere
about."
Robin nodded: "I did try to hear how she was, but that old dragon--"
"Meaning my friend Mrs. Blake?" said young Thorne. "Ah! Hardly civil
perhaps, but forcible."
"Well--Mrs. Blake, then--caught me in the shrubbery and pitched into me.
Said I ought to be ashamed of myself. Supposed I should be satisfied when
I'd broken Lottie's neck. Told me I'd better not show my face there again."
"Well," said Percival, "you couldn't expect Mrs. Blake to be particularly
delighted with your afternoon's work. And, Wingfield, though I was
especially to tell you that you were not to vex yourself about it, you
really ought to be more careful. Knocking a young lady's eye half out--"
"Young lady!" in a tone of intense scorn. "Lottie isn't a _young lady_."
"Oh! isn't she?" said Percival.
"I should think not, indeed!" And Robin eyed the big young man who was
laughing at him as if he meditated wiping out the insult to Lottie then and
there. But even with Jack, his sturdy satellite, to help, it was not to be
thought of. "She's a brick!" said Cock Robin, half to himself.
"No doubt," said Percival. "But, as I was saying, it isn't exactly the way
to treat her.--At least--I don't know: upon my word, I don't know," he
soliloquized. "Judging by most women's novels, from _Jane Eyre_ downward,
the taste for muscular bullies prevails. Robin may be the coming hero--who
knows?--and courtship commencing with a black eye the future
fashion.--Well, Robin, any answer?"
"Tell her I hope she'll soon be all right. Shall you see her?"
"I can see that she gets any message you want to send."
Robin groped among his treasures: "Look here: I brought away her knife that
afternoon. She lent it me. She'd better have it--it's got four blades--she
may want it, perhaps."
Percival dropped the formidable instrument carelessly into his pocket: "She
shall have it. And, Robin, you'd better not be hanging about here: Lottie
says so. You'll only vex Mrs. Blake."
"All right!" said the boy, and went off, with Jack after him.
Percival, who was staying in the neighborhood, went straight home, tied up
a parcel of books he thought might amuse Lottie in her imprisonment, and
wrote a note to go with them. He was whistling softly to himself as he
wrote, and, if the truth be told, had a fair vision floating before his
eyes--a girl of whom Lottie had reminded him by sheer force of contrast.
Still, he liked Lottie in her way. He was young enough to enjoy the easy
sense of patronage and superiority which made the words flow so pleasantly
from his pen. Never had Lottie seemed to him so utterly a child as
immediately after his talk with her boy-friend.
"Here are some books," said the hurrying pen, "which I think you will like
if your eye is not so bad as to prevent your reading. Robin was keeping his
disconsolate watch close by, as you foretold, and asked anxiously after
you, so I gave him your message and dismissed him. He especially charged me
to send you the enclosed--knife I believe he called it: it looks to me like
a whole armory of deadly weapons--which he seemed to think would be a
comfort to you in your affliction. I sincerely hope it may prove so. I was
very civil to him, remembering that I was your ambassador; but if he isn't
a little less rough with you in future, I shall be tempted to adopt Mr.
Blake's plan if I happen to meet your friend again. You really mustn't let
him damage those eyes of yours in this reckless fashion. Mrs. Blake was
nearly heartbroken this morning."
He sent his parcel off, and speedily ceased to think of it. And Lottie
herself might have done the same, not caring much for his books, but for
four little words--"those eyes of yours." Had Percival written "your eyes,"
it would have meant nothing, but "those eyes of yours" implied notice--nay,
admiration. Again and again she looked at the thick paper, with the crest
at the top and the vigorous lines of writing below; and again and again the
four words, "those eyes of yours," seemed to spring into ever-clearer
prominence. She hid the letter away with a sudden comprehension of the
roughness of her pencil scrawl which it answered, and began to take pride
in her looks when they least deserved it. Only a day or two before she had
envied Robin the possession of sight a little keener than her own, but now
she smiled to think that Percival Thorne would never have regretted injury
to "those eyes of yours" had she owned Robin's light-gray orbs.
Her transformation had begun. The knife was still a treasure, but she was
ashamed of her delight in it. She breathed on the shining blades and rubbed
them to brightness again, but she did it stealthily, with a glance over her
shoulder first. She went rambling with Robin and Jack, but not when she
knew that Percival Thorne was in the neighborhood. She was very sure of his
absence on the November day to which her mother had alluded, when she had
insisted on playing trap-and-ball in the rectory meadows. Mrs. Blake did
not realize it, but it was almost the last day of Lottie's old life. At
Christmas-time they were asked to stay for a few days at a friend's house.
There was to be a dance, and the hostess, being Lottie's godmother,
pointedly included her in the invitation; so Mrs. Blake and Addie did what
they could to improve their black sheep's appearance.
Lottie, dressed for the eventful evening, was left alone for a moment
before the three went down. She felt shy, dispirited and sullen. Her
ball-dress encumbered and constrained her. "I hate it all," she said to
herself, beating impatiently with her foot upon the ground. Something
moving caught her eye: it was her reflection in a mirror. She paused and
gazed in wonder. Was this slender girl, arrayed in a cloud of
semi-transparent white, really herself--the Lottie who only a few days
before had raced Robin Wingfield home across the fields, had been the first
over the gap and through the ditch into the rectory meadow, and had rushed
away with the November rain-drops driving in her face? She gazed on: the
transformation had its charms, after all. But the shadow came back: "It's
no use. Addie's prettier than I ever shall be: I must be second all my
life. Second! If I can't be A 1, I'd as soon be Z 1000! I won't go about
to be a foil to her. I'd ten times rather race with Robin; and I will too!
They sha'n't coop me up and make a young lady of me!"
She caught the flash of her indignant glance in the glass and paused.
"_Those eyes of yours!_"
_Must_ she be second all her life? Had she not a power and witchery of her
own? Might she not even distance Addie in the race? "I've more brains than
she has," mused Lottie.
Her heart was beating fast as they came down stairs. They had only arrived
by a late train, which gave them just time to dress; and Mrs. Blake had
rather exceeded the allowance, so that most of the guests had arrived and
the first quadrille was nearly ended as they came in. Lottie followed her
mother and Addie as they glided through the crowd, and when they paused she
stood shy and fierce, casting lowering glances around.
She heard their hostess say to some one, "Do let me find you a partner."
A well-known voice replied, "Not this time, thank you: I'm going to try to
find one for myself;" and Percival stood before her, looking, to her
girlish fancy, more of a hero than ever in the evening-dress which became
him well. The perfectly-fitting gloves, the flower in his coat, a dozen
little things which she could not define, made her feel uncouth and
anxious, fascinated and frightened, all at once. Had he greeted her in the
patronizing way in which he had talked to her of old, she would have been
deeply wounded, but he asked her for the next dance more ceremoniously, she
knew, than Horace would have asked Addie. Still, she trembled as they moved
off. They had scarcely met since her note to him. Suppose he alluded to it,
asked after her black eye, and inquired whether she had derived any benefit
from the beefsteak? Nothing more natural, and yet if he did Lottie felt
that she should _hate_ him. "I know I should do something dreadful," she
thought--"scratch his face, and then burst out crying, most likely. Oh,
what would become of me? I should be ruined for life! I should have to
shut myself up, never see any one again, and emigrate with Robin directly
he was old enough."
Percival did not know his danger, but he escaped it. The fatal thoughts
were in his mind while Lottie was planning her disgrace and exile, but he
merely remarked that he liked the first waltz, and should they start at
once or wait a moment till a couple or two dropped out?
"I don't know whether I _can_ waltz," said Lottie doubtfully.
"Weren't you over tortured with dancing-lessons?"
"Oh yes. But I've never tried at a party. Suppose we go bumping up against
everybody, like that fat man and the little lady in pink--the two who are
just stopping?"
"I assure you," said Percival gravely, "that I do not dance at all like
that fat man. And if you dance like the lady in pink, I shall be more
surprised than I have words to say. Now?"
They were off. Percival knew that he waltzed well, and had an idea that
Lottie would prove a good partner. Nor was he mistaken. She had been fairly
taught, much against her will, had a good ear for time, and, thanks to many
a race with Robin Wingfield, her energy was almost terrible. They spun
swiftly and silently round, unwearied while other couples dropped out of
the ranks to rest and talk. Percival was well pleased. It is true that he
had memories of waltzes with Sissy Langton of more utter harmony, of
sweeter grace, of delight more perfect, though far more fleeting. But
Lottie, with her steady swiftness and her strong young life, had a charm of
her own which he was not slow to recognize. She would hardly have thanked
him for accurately classifying it, for as she danced she felt that she had
discovered a new joy. Her old life slipped from her like a husk. Friendship
with Cock Robin was an evident absurdity. It is true she was angry with
herself that, after fighting so passionately for freedom, she should
voluntarily bend her proud neck beneath the yoke. She foresaw that her
mother and Addie would triumph; she felt that her bondage to Mrs. Grundy
would often be irksome; but here was the first instalment of her wages in
this long waltz with Percival. She fancied that the secret of her pleasure
lay in the two words--"with Percival." In her ignorance she thought that
she was tasting the honeyed fire of love, when in truth it was the
sweetness of conscious success. Before the last notes of that enchanted
music died away she had cast her girlish devotion, "half in a rapture and
half in a rage," at her partner's feet, while he stood beside her calm and
self-possessed. He would have been astounded, and perhaps almost disgusted,
had he known what was passing through her mind.
Love at sixteen is generally only a desire to be in love, and seeks not so
much a fit as a possible object. Probably Lottie's passion offered as many
assurances of domestic bliss as could be desired at her age.
Percival was dark, foreign-looking and handsome: he had an interesting air
of reserve, and no apparent need to practise small economies. His clothes
fitted him extremely well, and at times he had a way of standing proudly
aloof which was worthy of any hero of romance. No settled occupation would
interfere with picnics and balls; and, to crown all, had he not said to
her, "Those eyes of yours"? Were not these ample foundations for the
happiness of thirty or forty years of marriage?
Percival, meanwhile, wanted to be kind to the childish, half-tamed Lottie,
who had attracted his notice in the fields and trusted him with her
generous message to Robin Wingfield. The girl fancied herself immensely
improved by her white dress, but had Thorne been a painter he would have
sketched her as a pale vision of Liberty, with loosely-knotted hair and
dark eyes glowing under Robin's red cap. He was able coolly to determine
the precise nature of his pleasure in her society, but he knew that it was
a pleasure. And Lottie, when she fell asleep that night, clasped a card
which was rendered priceless by the frequent recurrence of his initials.
Her passion transformed her. Her vehement spirit remained, but everything
else was changed. Her old dreams and longings were cast out by the new. She
laughed with Mrs. Blake and Addie, but under the laughter she hid her love,
and cherished it in fierce and solitary silence. Yet even to herself the
transformation seemed so wonderful that she could hardly believe in it, and
acted the rough girl now and then with the idea that otherwise they _must_
think her a consummate actress morning, noon and night. For some months no
great event marked the record of her unsuspected passion. It might,
perhaps, have run its course, and died out harmlessly in due time, but for
an unlucky afternoon, about a week before her birthday, when Percival
uttered some thoughtless words which woke a tempest of doubt and fear in
Lottie's heart. She did not question his love, but she caught a glimpse of
his pride, and felt as if a gulf had opened between her and her dream of
happiness.
Percival was calling at the house on the eventful day which was destined to
influence Lottie's fate and his own. He was in a happy mood, well pleased
with things in general, and, after his own fashion, inclined to be
talkative. When visitors arrived and Addie exclaimed, "Mrs. Pickering and
that boy of hers--oh bother!" she spoke the feelings of the whole party;
and Percival from his place by the window looked across at Lottie and
shrugged his shoulders expressively. Had there been time he would have
tried to escape into the garden with his girl friend; but as that was
impossible, he resigned himself to his fate and listened while Mrs.
Pickering poured forth her rapture concerning her son's prospects to Mrs.
Blake. An uncle who was the head of a great London firm had offered the
young man a situation, with an implied promise of a share in the business
later. "Such a subject for congratulation!" the good lady exclaimed,
beaming on her son, who sat silently turning his hat in his hands and
looking very pink. "Such an opening for William! Better than having a
fortune left him, I call it, for it is such a thing to have an occupation.
Every young man should be brought up to something, in my opinion."
Mrs. Blake, with a half glance at Addie and a thought of Horace, suggested
that heirs to landed estates--
"Well, yes." Mrs. Pickering agreed with her. Country gentlemen often found
so much to do in looking after their tenants and making improvements that
she would not say anything about them. But young men with small incomes and
no profession--she should be sorry if a son of hers--
"Like me, for instance," said Percival, looking up. "I've a small income
and no profession."
Mrs. Pickering, somewhat confused, hastened to explain that she meant
nothing personal.
"Of course not," he said: "I know that. I only mentioned it because I think
an illustration stamps a thing on people's memories."
"But, Percival," Mrs. Blake interposed, "I must say that in this I agree
with Mrs. Pickering. I do think it would be better if you had something to
do--I do indeed." She looked at him with an air of affectionate severity.
"I speak as your friend, you know." (Percival bowed his gratitude.) "I
really think young people are happier when they have a settled occupation."
"I dare say that is true, as a rule," he said.
"But you don't think you would be?" questioned Lottie.
He turned to her with a smile: "Well, I doubt it. Of course I don't know
how happy I might be if I had been brought up to a profession." He glanced
through the open window at the warm loveliness of June. "At this moment,
for instance, I might have been writing a sermon or cutting off a man's
leg. But, somehow, I am very well satisfied as I am."
"Oh, if you mean to make fun of it--" Mrs. Blake began.
"But I don't," Percival said quickly. "I may laugh, but I'm in earnest too.
I have plenty to eat and drink; I can pay my tailor and still have a little
money in my pocket; I am my own master. Sometimes I ride--another man's
horse: if not I walk, and am just as well content. I don't smoke--I don't
bet--I have no expensive tastes. What could money do for me that I should
spend the best years of my life in slaving for it?"
"That may be all very well for the present," said Mrs. Blake.
"Why not for the future too? Oh, I have my dream for the future too."
"And, pray, may one ask what it is?" said Mrs. Pickering, looking down on
him from the height of William's prosperity.
"Certainly," he said. "Some day I shall leave England and travel leisurely
about the Continent. I shall have a sky over my head compared with which
this blue is misty and pale. I shall gain new ideas. I shall get grapes and
figs and melons very cheap. There will be a little too much garlic in my
daily life--even such a destiny as mine must have its drawbacks--but think
of the wonderful scenery I shall see and the queer, beautiful
out-of-the-way holes and corners I shall discover! And in years to come I
shall rejoice, without envy, to hear that Mr. Blake has bought a large
estate and gains prizes for fat cattle, while my friend here has been
knighted on the occasion of some city demonstration."
Young Pickering, who had been listening open-mouthed to the other's fluent
and tranquil speech, reddened at the allusion to himself and dropped his
hat.
"At that rate you must never marry," said Mrs. Blake.
Percival thoughtfully stroked his lip: "You think I should not find a wife
to share my enjoyment of a small income?"
"Marry a girl with lots of money, Mr. Thorne," said the future Sir William,
feeling it incumbent on him to take part in the conversation.
"Not I." Percival's glance made the lad's hot face yet hotter. "That's the
last thing I will do. If a man means to work, he may marry whom he will.
But if he has made up his mind to be idle, he is a contemptible cur if he
will let his wife keep him in his idleness." He spoke very quietly in his
soft voice, and leaned back in his chair.
"Well, then, you must never fall in love with an heiress," said Mrs.
Blake.
"Or you must work and win her," Lottie suggested almost in a whisper.
He smiled, but slightly shook his head with a look which she fancied meant
"Too late." Mrs. Pickering began to tell the latest Fordborough scandal,
and the talk drifted into another channel.
Lottie had listened as she always listened when Percival spoke, but she had
not attached any peculiar meaning to his words. But an hour or so later,
when he was gone and she was loitering in the garden just outside the
window, Addie, who was within, made some remark in a laughing tone. Lottie
did not catch the words, but Mrs. Blake's reply was distinct and not to be
mistaken: "William Pickering, indeed! No: with your looks and your
expectations you girls ought to marry really well." Lottie stood aghast.
They would have money, then? She had never thought about money. She would
be an heiress? And Percival would never marry an heiress--he could not: had
he not said so? How gladly would she have given him every farthing she
possessed! And was her fortune to be a barrier between them for ever? Every
syllable that he had spoken was made clear by this revelation, and rose up
before her eyes as a terrible word of doom. But she was not one to be
easily dismayed, and her first cry was, "What shall I do?" Lottie's
thoughts turned always to action, not to endurance, and she was resolved to
break down the barrier, let the cost be what it might. Her talk with
Godfrey Hammond gave a new interest to her romance and new strength to her
determination. Since her hero was disinherited and poor, and she, though
rich, would be poor in all she cared to have if she were parted from him,
might she not tell him so when she saw him on her birthday? She thought it
would be easier to speak on the one day when in girlish fashion she would
be queen. She would not think of her own pride, because his pride was dear
to her. She could not tell what she would say or do: she only knew that her
birthday should decide her fate. And her heart was beating fast in hope
and fear the night before when she banged the door after her and went off
to bed, sublimely ready to renounce the world for Percival.