THE NEW LOVE.
A fortnight later Lucy was returning from a rather lengthy ramble. She
had a companion, one of the school-girls, this being the universal
holiday, Saturday afternoon, and they both carried a basket full of
roots and leaves; for whenever Lucy went out she managed to bring home
something for planting in the little garden of which she and Leslie
were so fond and proud.
"I hope you're not getting tired, Jenny," she said to the girl who
tripped on proudly beside her.
"Oh, no, Miss Lucy."
"Well, I'm glad you are not," remarked Lucy; "for we are a long way
from home yet."
"And it is going to rain," added Jenny, with that placid indifference
to the weather which distinguishes country children.
"What; and I have brought no umbrella, and you have only that thin
cloak, Jenny. But perhaps you are wrong. I always notice that when
people say it is going to rain, it invariably turns out fine, perhaps
for weeks."
"It's going to rain now, Miss Lucy," repeated Jenny, still more
confidently; and a moment or two afterward she added, "There!"
Lucy felt a spot on her face and seized the girl's basket.
"You must let me carry this, Jenny, because we shall have to hurry all
we know. It will never do to go in wet through. What would Miss Leslie
say?"
This formula, which she found of great service when admonishing the
children, lent speed to Jenny's small feet, and Lucy and she hurried
along the road. But quickly as they went the rain caught them up, and
presently it came down in a torrent.
Jenny laughed, and Lucy, being rather careful of her clothes, and
inclined to take matters seriously, was constrained to laugh too.
"We must get under a tree," she said. "There, squeeze up against the
trunk, and I will stand in front of you and shelter you as well as I
can. Oh, what would I give for an umbrella!"
Jenny leaned against the tree and amused herself by twisting a spray
of brown ivy leaves into a wreath, and looking up at the weather now
and again; and Lucy was rapidly sinking into that semi-indifferent,
semi-despairing condition which such circumstances produce, when she
heard the rattle of a cart coming along the road.
"Jenny, there is a cart, and I believe it is going to Newfold," she
said, with a sudden hopefulness. "Perhaps it is someone we know--one of
the tradespeople. If so, we will ask them to give us a lift."
"They won't wait to be asked, Miss Lucy," said Jenny, shrewdly, and
indeed truthfully, for the two school-teachers were already favorites
in Newfold.
"Here it is now," said Lucy; then she sighed disappointedly. "It is a
dog cart--a gentleman's dog-cart," she said. "Bother!"
It came abreast of them and was spinning past, when suddenly the
gentleman who was driving seemed to see them, and after a moment's
hesitation he pulled up the horse.
"You mustn't stand under that tree," he called out.
Lucy colored and started for two reasons; one, because she had been
brought up in habits of obedience, and generally did what she was told,
no matter who told her, and especially if the order was issued in a
commanding voice, and this was a commanding voice. The other reason was
that she recognized the voice itself. It was the gentleman she had met
in the lane, and to whom she had given the fern root.
"Come away," he said, gravely; then he appeared to recognise her, for
he jumped down and, still holding the reins, came forward and raised
his hat, Jenny laughing to see the rain pour off the brim.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "I did not see who it was for a moment,
the rain is pelting so. But all the same you really must not stand
there. There is thunder in the air, and it is dangerous standing under
a tree--lightning you know!"
Lucy uttered a little cry, then laughed and blushed.
"Of course. How foolish of me not to think of it! But when you called
out I was afraid I was doing some injury to the tree by trespassing."
He laughed--a grave, short kind of laugh, which, however, seemed to
Lucy to suit him somehow.
"How wet you are!" he said. "Have you been standing here long?"
"Ever since it began," replied Lucy with a little shrug of her
shoulders--a trick she had unconsciously caught from Leslie. "And we
are waiting till it stops."
"I am afraid you will have to wait a long time," he remarked. "It has
set for a wet evening. May I ask where you are going?"
"To Newfold," said Lucy.
"Newfold? Ah, yes! Will you let me offer you a lift? I am going there,
or, at any rate, very near there--as far as the London road goes."
"Oh, no, thank you," said Lucy, flushing. He looked disappointed; then
he glanced at Jenny.
"The little girl is getting very wet. She will take a chill," he said,
gravely.
"Oh, do you think so?" exclaimed Lucy, with instant alarm. "Oh, dear!
And I am afraid she is not very strong. It doesn't in the least matter
so far as I am concerned, for I never take cold. I am used to the
country and rough weather; but Jenny----."
Jenny grinned at the idea of her being in any danger from an autumn
storm, but she was too wise to make any remark, for she was dying for a
ride in the handsome dog-cart.
"I think you had better let me take her--and you," he said; and seeing
that she still hesitated, he cut the Gordian knot by lifting Jenny into
the cart and holding out his hand for Lucy.
Then when she was seated he got out a big carriage umbrella and put it
up for them, and quickly slipping off his waterproof, arranged it on
the seat behind so that it completely covered them.
"Oh, but you will get wet!" remonstrated Lucy, much distressed; but he
laughed and made light of the business.
"We Londoners like getting wet sometimes," he said. "It is a change,
you see. In London we take as much care of ourselves as if a spot of
rain would kill us."
"Oh, I know," said Lucy, with shy pride. "I have lived in London for
some time."
"I thought you said you were used to the country?" he remarked.
"So I am--I was born in the country," Lucy explained, in her frank,
simple manner--a manner, by the way, which possesses a greater charm
for some, indeed most, men, than all the cultivated artificialities.
"I have lived all my life," she said--"all my life"--as if she were at
least ninety--"in the country until I went up to London to cram for my
exam."
"Your exam.?" he said, invitingly, and yet not obtrusively, and there
was nothing in the interest displayed in his face which indicated
presumptuous or idle curiosity.
"Yes," said Lucy, blushing faintly; "I am a teacher."
"A governess?" he said.
"No, a teacher," corrected Lucy, with fine emphasis. "I am one of the
teachers at the village school. There are only two--I mean teachers. I
am the second."
"And do you like being a teacher?" he asked. His voice was as grave as
ever, but the expression of interest seemed increasing; the pleasant
face looked so pretty and innocent and girlish under the shadow of the
big umbrella; the clear, low voice rang so true and sweet. It seemed
to the weary city man as if he had stopped to pick up one of the wild
flowers from the hedge-row.
"Oh, yes," said Lucy, promptly.
"I thought so by the way you spoke," he said, with a smile; and Lucy
laughed and blushed again.
"I like it very much," she said. "But, then, ours is such a nice
school, and the girls are all such good girls, aren't they, Jenny?"
"Yes, Miss Lucy," assented Jenny, from under the wrap into which she
had nestled.
"Self-praise, eh?" he said.
"Oh, but she is really a very good girl," said Lucy, in a confidential
whisper, which seemed to make them more intimate. "They are all good,
and so we are both as happy as we can be."
"We both?" he said.
"I mean my fellow-teacher; my principal," said Lucy, "Miss--" She was
about to tell him the name, but stopped, remembering that he was a
stranger and that Leslie might not like to be so confidential, about
herself, at any rate.
"I am very glad you are so happy," he said. "Do you know, I had been on
the point of visiting your school."
"You?" said Lucy, opening her eyes with surprise; and, as he noticed,
with something else--a faint but unmistakable pleasure.
"Yes," he said. "It belongs to a lady who is a friend of mine. She is
kind enough to let me see to some of her business matters."
"The kindness seems to be on the other side," said Lucy, laughing.
Ralph Duncombe colored and found himself laughing too.
"Well," he said, "let us say we are both kind. I was going to explain
that she had asked me to do something in connection with the school. I
forget what it was now."
"Perhaps it was the roof," said Lucy, eagerly. "It is rather bad in one
or two places, and the other morning two or three spots of water came
through. Oh, I hope it was the roof!"
"It must have been," he said, with due gravity; "and I will see that
it is put right at once. Is there anything else that wants doing,
Miss--Miss Lucy, I think you said your name was?"
"Yes, Lucy Somes," she said, thinking hard, and trying to remember if
there was anything else wrong at her beloved school. "N-o, I don't
think there is anything else the matter, excepting the roof."
"Perhaps I had better come and see for myself, he said, in a
matter-of-fact way.
"Are you--an architect?" Lucy inquired, rather timidly.
Ralph Duncombe smiled.
"No; I am nothing nearly so clever. I am only an ordinary business man,
very hard worked and very glad to run away from the city and into the
fresh air."
"Ah, yes; how you must enjoy it!" said Lucy, with a sympathetic little
sigh, "to get away from the crowd and the heat and the smoke."
So they talked, and as Ralph Duncombe listened to the sweet young voice
it seemed to him as if there was a power in it to soothe his weary,
restless spirit; and when Lucy suddenly exclaimed, as if she were quite
surprised that they should have reached the spot so soon, "Why, here is
the corner!" he pulled the horse up with evident reluctance.
"I'll drive you around to the school," he said; but Lucy declined, and
so earnestly that he could not persist.
He lifted them down, and cut short Lucy's blushing thanks.
"It is I who ought to be, and am very much, obliged to you, Miss
Somes," he said, "for you have made one part of my lonely drive very
pleasant. I hope you won't be any the worse for your wetting."
"Oh, but I am as dry as a bone--and so is Jenny," said Lucy, blushing
still more. "Good-by--and you will not forget the roof?"
"No, no," he said; "but I must come and see it myself."
He sat bolt upright in the cart, watching them as they ran along the
road shining with the rain, and a strange feeling took possession of
him. How lonely he had been before he saw them! How lonely all his life
was! He was rich, fearfully rich, and yet there was not a streak of
sunshine in his life. His love for Leslie Lisle had clouded it over as
with a pall. Oh! why had the fates dealt with him so unkindly? Why had
he not given his heart to some girl like the one who had just left
him--one who would have returned his love, and borne for him the sweet
name of--wife?
For the first time in his life Ralph Duncombe found himself thinking
tenderly and wistfully of some other woman than Leslie Lisle.
He thought of her several times the next day. Her sweet girlish face
came between him and a most important letter he was writing; and once
during the morning his chief clerk came in and found him--the great
city man--sitting with his head leaning on his hands and his eyes fixed
vacantly on the window.
When Saturday came around again he remembered that he must go round
to White Place to see Lady Eleanor. He had the horse harnessed, and
drove along the road, light now with the autumn sunshine, and every
inch of the way he thought of Lucy. When, in the afternoon, he reached
the corner where he had set her and Jenny down, he pulled up, stared
straight in front of him for a moment, then suddenly turned the corner
and drove to the school, and his heart beat as it had not beaten since
he said good-by to Leslie as he saw Lucy's girlish figure in the
garden. She wore a plain cotton frock; a big sun hat, much battered and
sunburned, was on her head, and the prettiest and most useless of rakes
in her hand. She almost dropped this apology for a tool when she saw
him, and the color ran up her cheeks as she came to the gate.
"You have come to see the roof!" she said. "That is kind of you."
"Yes, I have come to see the roof!" he said.
He had forgotten all about it; but he could scarcely say he had come to
see her.
"I am so sorry," said Lucy; "but my friend--the principal, you know--is
out. She does not often leave the house and garden, even for an hour,
excepting to go to church; but I persuaded her to go down to the
village this afternoon. I am so very sorry!"
"So am I," responded Ralph, with mendacious politeness. "May I come in?"
"Oh, yes, please!" said Lucy. "But the horse?"
"He will stand till this day week," said Ralph. "But I'll hitch the
reins over the palings all the same."
"This way," said Lucy, eagerly; and she led him to the school-room. He
stared up at the very small hole in the roof with the deepest gravity
apparently; but in reality he was thinking how sweetly pretty the face
beside him looked as she upturned to gaze aloft.
"All right," he said, with a laugh. "I'll see that it is put straight.
You are sure there is nothing else?"
"N-o," said Lucy, "nothing. Oh, yes! the gate to the meadow is so very
old that that the donkey in the next field pushes it open, and--"
"Let us go in and see it," said Ralph, promptly. "We may as well do
everything that wants doing at once."
They went to the meadow, and he examined the gate and admired the
view across the fields, and on Lucy telling him it was much better
from the edge of the wood, he wandered off in that direction, and,
somehow or other, they found themselves sitting on the stile that led
into the plantation and talking, as Lucy put it afterward, "like old
friends"--so much so, indeed, that it was with quite a start that Lucy
heard the clock strike five.
"Oh, I have not offered you any tea!" she exclaimed, remorsefully.
"Please come into the school-house. My friend will be back by this
time, and she will be quite angry at my want of hospitality."
Ralph, picturing to himself a middle-aged school-mistress as the
'principal,' glanced at his watch hesitatingly; but seeing a look of
disappointment beginning to cloud Lucy's face, rose promptly.
Why should he not go in to tea with her? It was the last time he
would see her, having an opportunity of listening to the sweet young
voice; and at the thought a sudden pang shot through his heart. He had
spent his life following a will-o'-the-wisp. Leslie Lisle, even if
he found her, could never be his. Why should he not ask this pretty,
innocent-eyed girl--
"Lucy," he said, suddenly, and yet gently.
She started at the sound of the Christian name, and turned her eyes
upon him questioningly.
"Don't be frightened," he said, still more gently, but with an earnest
gravity that thrilled her. "And yet I am afraid I shall frighten you.
Do you know what it is I am going to ask you? No, you cannot guess.
Lucy, since last Saturday I have been thinking of you every day!"
"Of me?" The words left her lips in a whisper, and the color deepened
in her cheeks.
"Of you!" he said, fervently. "I love you, Lucy. Will you be my wife?"
She stepped back, her eyes opening wide, her parted lips tremulous. But
when he took her hand she did not shrink back further, and she did not
attempt to take the hand away.
* * * * *
They wandered hand in hand about the lanes for an hour, while the horse
contentedly nibbled at the grass at the bottom of the garden hedge,
and during that hour Ralph told her who and what he was--told her
everything, indeed, excepting his love for Leslie Lisle--and Lucy was
still in 'love's amaze' as they made their way back to the house.
"You must come in, if only for a moment," she said as
he was unfastening the reins. "I want to tell her--my
fellow-teacher--to--to--to show you to her." Her eyes sunk and her
voice trembled. "I know she will be so glad! Besides, I--I couldn't
tell her about it all by myself. It is so sudden--so dreadfully
sudden--that I should die of shame!" and her face grew crimson as she
laughed.
"All right," he said; "I will come in; but it must be only for a
moment, Lucy."
She opened the gate, and as she did so something glittering on the path
caught her eye.
She stooped and picked it up.
"Why, it's a ring!" she exclaimed--"a gentleman's ring! You must have
dropped it as you came in--Ralph."
"Not I!" he said, shaking his head.
He had not worn a ring since--since he had given his to Leslie.
"But you must have done," she said, with charming persistence. "No
gentleman has passed this gate excepting you, sir."
He laughed.
"Let me see," he said.
He took the ring, looked at it, and the smile fled from his face, which
suddenly went pale. It was the ring he had given Leslie! He stood, dumb
with amazement.
"Well?" she said, linking her arm in his, and so intent on the ring
that she did not notice his pallor and constraint.
"Yes," he said, and his voice rang out with a strange doubt and
trouble--"yes, it is my ring!"