FAINT HEART WINS FAIR LADY.
Percival Thorne would have readily declared that it was a matter of utter
indifference to him whether his landlady went at the end of March to pay a
three weeks' visit to her eldest sister or whether she stayed at home. He
took very little notice when Mrs. Bryant told him of her intention. She
talked for some time. When she was gone Thorne found himself left with the
impression that the lady in question was a Mrs. Smith, who resided
somewhere in Bethnal Green; that some one was a plumber and glazier; that
some one had had the measles; that trade was not all one could wish, nor
were Mrs. Bryant's relations quite what they should have been, but that,
she thanked Goodness, they were not all alike. This struck him as a
reasonable cause for thankfulness, as otherwise there would certainly have
been a terrible monotony in the family circle. He also had an idea that
Mrs. Smith had received a great deal of good advice on the subject of her
marriage, and he rather thought that Smith was not the sort of man to
make a woman happy. "Either Smith isn't, or Bryant wasn't when he was
alive--now which was it?" smiled Percival to himself, ruffling his wavy
hair and leaning back in his chair with a confused sense of relief. And
then the dispute about the grandmother's crockery came in, and the uncle
who had a bit of money and married the widow at Margate. "I hope to
Goodness Mrs. Bryant will stay away some time if she has half as much to
say on her return!"
The good woman had not gone into Mr. Thorne's room for the purpose of
giving him all this information. It had come naturally to her lips when
she found herself there, but she merely wished to suggest to him that
Lydia would be busy while she was away, and money-matters were terribly
muddling, weren't they? and perhaps it would make it easier if Mr.
Thorne's bill stood over. Percival understood in a moment. The careworn
face, the confused manner, told him all. Lydia would probably waste the
money, and the old lady, though with perceptible hesitation, had decided
to trust him rather than her daughter. It was so. Lydia considered that
her mother was stingy, and that finery was indispensable while she was
husband-hunting.
"You see, there'll be one less to feed, and it would only bother her; and
you've always been so regular with your money," said Mrs. Bryant
wistfully.
"Oh, I see, perfectly," Thorne replied. "I won't trouble Miss Bryant about
it. It shall be all ready for you when you come back, of course. A
pleasant journey to you!"
The old lady went off, not without anxiety, but very favorably impressed
with Percival's lofty manner. And he thought no more about it. But the
time came when he wished that Mrs. Bryant had never thought of visiting
Mrs. Smith of Bethnal Green at all.
Easter fell very late that year, far on in April, and it seemed to Judith
that the holidays would never come. At last, however, they were within a
week of the breaking-up day. It was Sunday, and she could say to herself,
"Next Thursday I shall be free."
Bertie and she had just breakfasted, and he was leaning in his favorite
attitude against the chimney-piece. She had taxed him with looking ill,
but he had smilingly declared that there was nothing amiss with him.
"Do you sleep well, Bertie?" she asked wistfully.
"Pretty well. Not very much last night, by the way. But you are whiter
than I am: look at yourself in the glass. Even if you deduct the green--"
Judith gazed into the verdant depths. "I don't know how much to allow,"
she said thoughtfully. "By the way, Bertie, I'm not going with you to St.
Sylvester's this morning."
"All right!" said Bertie.
"I have a fancy to go to St. Andrew's for once," said Judith, arranging
the ribbon at her throat as she spoke--"just for a change. You don't mind,
do you?"
"Mind? no," said Bertie, but something in his voice caused her to look
round. He was as pale as death, grasping the chimney-piece with one hand
while the other was pressed upon his heart.
"Bertie! You _are_ ill! Lean on me." The little sofa was close by, and she
helped him to it and ran for eau de cologne. When she came back he was
lying with his head thrown back, white and still, yet looking more like
himself than in that first ghastly moment. Presently the blood came back
to cheek and lip, and he looked up and smiled. "You are better?" she said
anxiously.
"Oh yes, I'm better. I'm all right. Can't think what made me make such a
fool of myself."
"No, don't get up: lie still a little longer," said Judith, standing over
him with the wicker flask in her hand. "Oh, how you frightened me!"
"Don't pour any more of that stuff over me," he answered languidly. "You
must have expended quarts. I can feel little rivulets of it creep-creeping
at the roots of my hair."
"But, Bertie, what was the matter with you?"
"I hardly know. It's all over now. My heart seemed to stop beating just
for a moment. I wonder if it did, really? Or should I have died? Do sit
down, Judith. You look as if you were going to faint too."
She sat down by him. After a minute Bertie's slim, long fingers groped
restlessly, and she held them in a tender grasp. So for some time they
remained hand in hand. Judith watched him furtively as he lay with closed
eyes, his fair boyish face pressed on the dingy cushion, and a great
tenderness lighted her quiet glance. Suddenly, Bertie's eyes opened and
met hers. She answered his look of inquiry: "You are all I have, dear. We
two are alone, are we not? I must be anxious if you are ill."
He pressed her hand, but he turned his face a little away, conscious at
the same moment of a flush of self-reproach and of a lurking smile.
"Don't!" he said. "I'm not ill. I'm all right now--never better. Isn't it
time for me to be off? I say, my dear girl, if you don't look sharp you'll
be late at St. Andrew's."
"St. Andrew's!" she repeated scornfully. "_I_ go to St. Andrew's _now_,
and think all the service through that my bad boy may be fainting at St.
Sylvester's! No, no: I shall go with you."
"Thank you," said Bertie, sitting up and running his fingers through his
hair by way of preparation for church. "I shall be glad, if you don't
mind."
"That is," she went on, "if you are fit to go at all."
"Oh yes. I couldn't leave old Clifton in the lurch for anything short of
sudden death, and even then he'd feel himself ill used. Stay at home
because I felt faint? It would be as much as my place is worth," said
Bertie with a smile of which Judith could not understand the fine irony.
"I'll go and get ready," she said. But she went to the door of Percival's
sitting-room and knocked.
"Come in," he answered, and she opened it. He was stooping over his fire,
poker in hand. She paused on the threshold, and, after breaking a hard
lump of coal, he looked over his shoulder: "Miss Lisle! I beg your
pardon. I thought they had come for the breakfast things."
"Oh!" she said, in a slightly disappointed tone. "You are not going to
church to-day." For Thorne was more picturesquely careless in his apparel
than is the wont of the British church-goer.
A rapid change of mind enabled him to answer truthfully, "Yes, I am. I
ought to get ready, I suppose. Did you want me for anything, Miss Lisle?"
"Were you going to St. Sylvester's, or not?"
Percival had known by her tone that she wanted him to go to church. But he
did not know which church claimed his attendance, so he answered
cautiously, "Oh, I hardly know. I think I should like some one to make up
my mind for me. Are you going with your brother?"
"Yes," said Judith. "He isn't very well to-day. I was rather frightened by
his fainting just now."
"Of course I'll go with you," said Percival. "I'll be ready in two
minutes. Been fainting? Is he better now?"
"Much better. Will you really?" And Judith vanished.
Percival was perhaps a little longer than the time he had named, but he
soon came out in a very different character from that of the young man who
had lounged over his late breakfast in his shabby coat. He looked
anxiously at young Lisle as they started, but Bertie's appearance was
hardly such as to call for immediate alarm. He seemed well enough,
Percival thought, though perhaps a little excited. In truth, there was not
much amiss with him. He had got over the uneasy sense of self-reproach:
the sudden shock which had caused his dismay was past, and as he went his
way, solemnly escorted by his loving sister and his devoted friend, he was
suffering much more from suppressed laughter than from anything else.
Everything was a joke, and the narrowness of his escape that morning was a
greater joke than all. "By Jove! what a laugh we will have over it one of
these days!" thought Lisle as he put on his surplice.
Loving eyes followed him as he went to his place, and his name was fondly
breathed in loving prayers.