LESLEY'S PROMISE.
Maurice was no backward lover. He made his way to Lesley that very day,
and found her in the library--not, as usual, bending over a book, but
standing by the window, from which could be seen a piece of waste ground
overgrown with grass and weeds, and shaded by some great plane and elm
trees. There was nothing particularly fascinating in the outlook, which
partook of the usual grimness of a London atmosphere; but the young
green of the budding trees spoke, in spite of the blackness of their
branches, of spring and spring's delight; and there was a brightness in
the tints of the tangled grass which gave a restful satisfaction to the
eye. Lesley was looking out upon this scene with a wistfulness which
struck Maurice with some surprise.
"You like this window?" he said, interrogatively, when they had shaken
hands and exchanged a word or two of greeting.
"Yes, it reminds me in some way of my old convent home; I don't know why
it should; but there are trees and grass and greenness."
"Ah, you love the country?"
"Do not you?"
"Yes, but there are better things in the world than even trees and
grass."
"Ah, yes," said Lesley, eagerly. Then, with a little smile, she added;
as if quoting--"Souls of men."
"I was thinking of their bodies," said the young doctor. "But that's as
it should be. You think of the spiritual, I only of the material side.
Both sides ought to be considered that is where men and women meet, I
take it."
"I suppose so," said Lesley, a little vaguely.
"I'm afraid," Maurice went on, "that it will be a long time before I
have a country house of my own: a place where there will be trees and
green meadows and flowers, such as one loves and sighs for. I have
often thought"--with a note of agitation in his voice--"how much easier
it would be to ask any one to share my life if I had these good things
to offer. My only chance has been to find someone who cares--as I
care--for the souls and bodies of the men and women around us; who would
not disdain to help me in my work."
"Who _could_ disdain it?" asked Lesley, innocently indignant.
"Do you mean"--turning suddenly upon her--"that you don't consider a
hard working doctor's life something inexpressibly beneath you?"
She drew back a little hurt, a little bit astonished.
"Certainly not. Why should I?"
"You are born to a life of luxury and self-indulgence."
"My father is a journalist," said Lesley with a smile, in which
amusement struggled with offence.
"But your grandfather was an earl! It is possible," with a touch of
raillery, "that you prefer earls to general practitioners."
"Of the two, it is the doctor that leads the better life, in my
opinion," said Lesley, rather hotly; but immediately cooling down, she
added the remark--"My preferences have nothing much, however, to do with
the matter."
"Have they not? How little you know your own power!"
Lesley looked at him in much amaze. Whither this conversation was
tending it had not yet occurred to her to inquire. But something in his
look, as he stood fronting her, brought the color to her cheeks and
caused her eyes to sink. She became suddenly a little afraid of him, and
wished herself a thousand miles away. Indeed she made one backward step,
as if her maidenly instincts were about to manifest themselves in actual
flight. But Maurice saw the movement, and made two steps forward, which
brought him so close to her that he could have touched her hand if he
had wished.
"Don't you understand?" he said, in an agitated voice. "Don't you see
that your opinion--your preferences--are all the world to me?"
He paused as if expecting her to reply--leaning a little towards her to
catch the word from her lips. But Lesley did not speak. She remained
motionless, as pale now as she had been red before--her hands hanging at
her sides and her eyes fixed upon the ground. She looked as if she were
stricken dumb with dismay.
"I know that I have not recommended myself to you by anything that I
have said or done," Maurice went on. "I misjudged you once, and I spoke
roughly, rudely, brutally; but it was the way you took what I said which
made me understand you. You were so fine, so noble, so sweet! Instead of
making my stupidity an excuse for shutting yourself away from what your
father was doing, you immediately threw yourself into it, you began to
work with him and for him--as of course I might have seen that you would
do directly you came to know him. I was a fool, and you were an
angel--that summarizes the situation."
A faint smile curled Lesley's lips, although she did not look up. "I am
afraid there is not much of the angel about me," she said.
"Ah, you can't see yourself as others see you," he answered, quite
ignoring the implication in her remark which a less ardent lover might
have resented. "To me, at any rate, you are the one woman in the world,
the only one I have ever loved--shall ever love as long as I live--the
fulfilment of my ideal--the realization of all my dreams!"
His vehemence made Lesley draw back.
"You exaggerate," she said with a slight shake of the head. "Indeed, I
am not all that--I could not be. I am very ignorant and full of faults.
I have a bad temper----"
"You have a temper that is sweetness itself!"
"Oh, Mr. Kenyon, how can you say so?"--with a look of reproach. "You who
have seen me so angry!"
"Your temper is just like your father's," said Maurice, dogmatically. "A
little hot, if you like, but sweet----"
"Something like preserved ginger?" asked Lesley.
The two young people looked at each other with laughter in their eyes.
This was Lesley's way of trying to stave off the inevitable. If
Maurice's declaration could only be construed into idle compliment, she
would be rid of the necessity of giving him a plain answer. And what had
been begun as a proposal of marriage seemed likely to degenerate into a
fencing match.
Maurice saw the danger, and was too quick-witted to fall unawares into
the trap which Lesley had laid for him. A war of words was the very
thing in which he and Ethel most delighted; and it was usually quite
easy to induce brother and sister to engage upon it. But on this
occasion he was too much in earnest for word-play. He laughed at
Lesley's simile, and then became suddenly and almost fiercely grave.
"I can't let you turn the whole thing into a joke," he said. "You know
that I mean what I say. It is a matter of life and death to me. I love
you with my whole heart, and I come to-day to know whether there is any
chance for me--whether you can honor me with your love--whether you will
one day consent to be my wife."
His voice sank to a pleading tone, and his face was very pale. But he
felt that a great display of emotion would frighten and repel the girl,
and he therefore sedulously avoided, as far as possible, any appearance
of agitation. He could not, however, entirely achieve the calmness which
he desired, and the very suppression of his agitation, which, in spite
of himself, made his voice shake, and brought fire to his eyes, had an
unwontedly unnerving effect upon Lesley.
"Oh, I don't know," she said hurriedly. "I can't tell--I never
thought----"
"Think now," he said persuasively. "Am I disagreeable to you?"
"No,"--very softly.
"Have you forgiven me for my bad behavior in the past?"
"You never did behave badly."
"But you have forgiven me?"
"Oh, yes."
This was illogical, as she had previously intimated that there was
nothing to forgive; but, under such circumstances, Lesley may be
excused.
"And--surely, then--you like me a little!"
"A little," Lesley breathed, rather than spoke, with an unconscious
smile of happiness.
"Can you not call it 'loving?'" asked Maurice, daring for the first time
to take her soft little hand in his.
But the question, the look, the touch, suddenly terrified Lesley, and
brought back to her mind a long-forgotten promise. What was it her mother
had required of her before she left Paris for her father's house? Was it
not a pledge that she should not bind herself to marry any man?--that
she should not engage herself to be married? Lesley had an instinctive
knowledge of the fact that to proclaim her promise would be to cast
discredit on Lady Alice; and so, while trying to keep her word, she
sought for means to avoid telling the whole truth.
"No, oh no," she said, withdrawing her hand at once and turning away.
"Indeed, I could not. Please do not ask me anymore."
The shock was very great to Maurice. He stood perfectly silent for a
moment. He had thought that he was making such good progress--and,
behold! the wind had suddenly changed; the face of the heavens was
overcast. He tried to think that he had been mistaken, and made another
attempt to win a favorable hearing.
"Miss Brooke--Lesley--you say you like me a little. Do you not think
that your liking for me might grow? When you know that I love you so
tenderly, that I would lay down my very life for you, when you can hear
all that I can tell you of my hopes, my dreams, my aspirations----"
"I do not want to hear," said Lesley, putting out her hand blindly.
"Please do not tell me: it makes me miserable--indeed, I must not
listen."
Again Maurice stood silent for a moment.
"_Must_ not listen?" he repeated at length, with a keen look at her.
"Why must you not?"
Lesley made no answer.
"You speak strangely," said Kenyon, with some slight coldness beginning
to manifest itself in his manner. "Why should you not listen to me? If
you are thinking of your father, I can assure you that he has no
objection to me. I have consulted him already. He would be honestly
glad, I believe, if you could care for me--he has told me so. Does his
opinion go for nothing?"
She shook her head.
"I can't explain," she said brokenly. "I can only ask you not to say
anything--at least--I have promised----"
"Promised not to listen to me?"
"To anything of the kind," said Lesley, feeling that she was making a
terrible mess of the whole affair, and yet unable to loosen her tongue
sufficiently to explain.
"May I ask to whom you gave this promise?"
"No," said Lesley.
There was another silence, but this time it was a silence charged with
ominous significance. Maurice's face was very white, and a peculiar
rigidity showed itself in the lines of his features. He was very much
disappointed, and he also felt that he had some right to be displeased.
"If you were bound by any such promise, Miss Brooke," he said, "I think
it would have been better that your friends should have known of it. I
don't think that Mr. Brooke was aware----"
"Oh, no, he knew nothing about it."
"It was a promise made before you came here?"
"Yes."
"Of which your mother--Lady Alice--approves?"
"Oh, yes--it was to her--because she----"
Lesley stammered and tried to explain. There was a tremendous oppression
upon her, such as one feels sometimes in a nightmare dream. She longed
to speak out, to clear herself in Maurice's eyes, and yet she could not
frame a single intelligible sentence. It was as though she were
afflicted with dumbness.
"I think," said Maurice, deliberately, "that your father and your aunt
had a right to know this fact. You seem to have kept them in ignorance
of it. And I have been led into a mistake. I can assure you, Miss
Brooke, that if I had been aware of any previous promise--or--or
engagement of yours, I should never have presumed to speak as I have
spoken to-day. I can but apologize and withdraw."
Before Lesley could answer, he had taken his hat, bowed profoundly, and
left the room.
And Lesley, with lips from which all color had faded, and hands pressed
tightly together, watched him go, and stood for some minutes in dazed,
despairing silence before she could say, even to herself, with a burst
of hot and bitter tears,
"Oh, I did not mean him to think _that_. And now I cannot explain! What
shall I do? What _can_ I do to make him understand?"
But that was a question for which she found no answer.