"What could you have thought of me?" I exclaimed presently.
"Really, at first I did not know what to think," said she. "Of course
I did not know what had detained you in this country, but I remembered
that I had heard that you were a very particular person about your
flowers and shrubs and grounds, and that most likely you thought they
would be better taken care of if you kept an eye on them, and that when
you found there was so much to do you just went to work and did it. I
did not speak of this to anybody, because if you did not wish it to be
known that you were taking care of the grounds it was not my business
to tell people about it. But yesterday, when I found this place where
I had hung my hammock so beautifully cleared up and made so nice and
clean and pleasant in every way, I thought I must come down to tell you
how much obliged I am, and also that you ought not to take so much
trouble for us. If you think the grounds need more attention, I will
persuade my father to hire another man, now and then, to work about the
place. Really, Mr. Ripley, you ought not to have to--"
I was humbled, abashed. She had seen me at my morning devotions, and
this was the way she interpreted them. She considered me an overnice
fellow who was so desperately afraid his place would be injured that he
came sneaking around every morning to see if any damage had been done
and to put things to rights.
She stood for a moment as if expecting me to speak, brushed a buzzing
fly from her sleeve, and then, looking at me with a gentle smile, she
turned a little as if she were about to leave.
I could not let her go without telling her something. Her present
opinion of me must not rest in her mind another minute. And yet, what
story could I devise? How, indeed, could I devise anything with which
to deceive a girl who spoke and looked at me as this girl did? I could
not do it. I must rush away speechless and never see her again, or I
must tell her all. I came a little nearer to her.
"Miss Vincent," said I, "you do not understand at all why I am
here--why I have been here so much--why I did not go to Europe. The
truth is, I could not leave. I do not wish to be away; I want to come
here and live here always--"
"Oh, dear!" she interrupted, "of course it is natural that you should
not want to tear yourself away from your lovely home. It would be very
hard for us to go away now, especially for father and me, for we have
grown to love this place so much. But if you want us to leave, I dare
say--"
"I want you to leave!" I exclaimed. "Never! When I say that I want to
live here myself, that my heart will not let me go anywhere else, I
mean that I want you to live here too--you, your mother and
father--that I want--"
"Oh, that would be perfectly splendid!" she said. "I have
ever so often thought that it was a shame that you should be deprived
of the pleasures you so much enjoy, which I see you can find here and
nowhere else. Now, I have a plan which I think will work splendidly.
We are a very small family. Why shouldn't you come here and live with
us? There is plenty of room, and I know father and mother would be
very glad, and you can pay your board, if that would please you better.
You can have the room at the top of the tower for your study and your
smoking den, and the room under it can be your bedroom, so you can be
just as independent as you please of the rest of us, and you can be
living on your own place without interfering with us in the least. In
fact, it would be ever so nice, especially as I am in the habit of
going away to the sea-shore with my aunt every summer for six weeks,
and I was thinking how lonely it would be this year for father and
mother to stay here all by themselves."
The tower and the room under it! For me! What a contemptibly
little-minded and insignificant person she must think me. The words
with which I strove to tell her that I wished to live here as lord,
with her as my queen, would not come. She looked at me for a moment as
I stood on the brink of saying something but not saying it, and then
she turned suddenly toward the hammock.
"Did you see anything of a fan I left here?" she said. "I know I left
it here, but when I came yesterday it was gone. Perhaps you may have
noticed it somewhere--"
Now, the morning before, I had taken that fan home with me. It was an
awkward thing to carry, but I had concealed it under my coat. It was a
contemptible trick, but the fan had her initials on it, and as it was
the only thing belonging to her of which I could possess myself, the
temptation had been too great to resist. As she stood waiting for my
answer there was a light in her eye which illuminated my perceptions.
"Did you see me take that fan?" I asked.
"I did," said she.
"Then you know," I exclaimed, stepping nearer to her, "why it is I did
not leave this country as I intended, why it was impossible for me to
tear myself away from this house, why it is that I have been here every
morning, hovering around and doing the things I have been doing?"
She looked up at me, and with her eyes she said, "How could I help
knowing?" She might have intended to say something with her lips, but
I took my answer from her eyes, and with the quick impulse of a lover I
stopped her speech.
"You have strange ways," she said presently, blushing and gently
pressing back my arm. "I haven't told you a thing."
"Let us tell each other everything now," I cried, and we seated
ourselves in the hammock.
It was a quarter of an hour later and we were still sitting together in
the hammock.
"You may think," said she, "that, knowing what I did, it was very queer
for me to come out to you this morning, but I could not help it. You
were getting dreadfully careless, and were staying so late and doing
things which people would have been bound to notice, especially as
father is always talking about our enjoying the fresh hours of the
morning, that I felt I could not let you go on any longer. And when it
came to that fan business I saw plainly that you must either
immediately start for Europe or--"
"Or what?" I interrupted.
"Or go to my father and regularly engage yourself as a--"
I do not know whether she was going to say "gardener" or not, but it
did not matter. I stopped her.
It was perhaps twenty minutes later, and we were standing together at
the edge of the woods. She wanted me to come to the house to take
breakfast with them.
"Oh, I could not do that!" I said. "They would be so surprised. I
should have so much to explain before I could even begin to state my
case."
"Well, then, explain," said she. "You will find father on the front
piazza. He is always there before breakfast, and there is plenty of
time. After all that has been said here, I cannot go to breakfast and
look commonplace while you run away."
"But suppose your father objects?" said I.
"Well, then you will have to go back and take breakfast with your
miller," said she.
I never saw a family so little affected by surprises as those Vincents.
When I appeared on the front piazza the old gentleman did not jump. He
shook hands with me and asked me to sit down, and when I told him
everything he did not even ejaculate, but simply folded his hands
together and looked out over the railing.
"It seemed strange to Mrs. Vincent and myself," he said, "when we first
noticed your extraordinary attachment for our daughter, but, after all,
it was natural enough."
"Noticed it!" I exclaimed. "When did you do that?"
"Very soon," he said. "When you and Cora were cataloguing the books at
my house in town I noticed it and spoke to Mrs. Vincent, but she said
it was nothing new to her, for it was plain enough on the day when we
first met you here that you were letting the house to Cora, and that
she had not spoken of it to me because she was afraid I might think it
wrong to accept the favorable and unusual arrangements you were making
with us if I suspected the reason for them. We talked over the matter,
but, of course, we could do nothing, because there was nothing to do,
and Mrs. Vincent was quite sure you would write to us from Europe. But
when my man Ambrose told me he had seen some one working about the
place in the very early morning, and that, as it was a gentleman, he
supposed it must be the landlord, for nobody else would be doing such
things, Mrs. Vincent and I looked out of the window the next day, and
when we found it was indeed you who were coming here every day, we felt
that the matter was serious and were a good deal troubled. We found,
however, that you were conducting affairs in a very honorable
way,--that you were not endeavoring to see Cora, and that you did not
try to have any secret correspondence with her,--and as we had no right
to prevent you from coming on your grounds, we concluded to remain
quiet until you should take some step which we would be authorized to
notice. Later, when Mr. Barker came and told me that you had not gone
to Europe, and were living with a miller not far from here--"
"Barker!" I cried. "The scoundrel!"
"You are mistaken, sir," said Mr. Vincent. "He spoke with the greatest
kindness of you, and said that as it was evident you had your own
reasons for wishing to stay in the neighborhood, and did not wish the
fact to be known, he had spoken of it to no one but me, and he would
not have done this had he not thought it would prevent embarrassment in
case we should meet."
Would that everlasting Barker ever cease meddling in my affairs?
"Do you suppose," I asked, "that he imagined the reason for my staying
here?"
"I do not know," said the old gentleman, "but after the questions I put
to him I have no doubt he suspected it. I made many inquiries of him
regarding you, your family, habits, and disposition, for this was a
very vital matter to me, sir, and I am happy to inform you that he said
nothing of you that was not good, so I urged him to keep the matter to
himself. I determined, however, that if you continued your morning
visits I should take an early opportunity of accosting you and asking
an explanation."
"And you never mentioned anything of this to your daughter?" said I.
"Oh, no," he answered. "We carefully kept everything from her."
"But, my dear sir," said I, rising, "you have given me no answer. You
have not told me whether or not you will accept me as a son-in-law."
He smiled. "Truly," he said, "I have not answered you; but the fact
is, Mrs. Vincent and I have considered the matter so long, and having
come to the conclusion that if you made an honorable and
straightforward proposition, and if Cora were willing to accept you, we
could see no reason to object to--"
At this moment the front door opened and Cora appeared.
"Are you going to stay to breakfast?" she asked. "Because, if you are,
it is ready."