The captain would have been more elate if he had been able to follow the
fortunes of Sam Jenkles's cab; for having received his instructions, Sam
bowled along by Euston Square in the direction of the Hampstead Road,
till he had to go at a foot's pace on account of some alteration to the
roadway, the result being that for a few moments the cab was abreast of
a barouche containing four ladies, one of whom started, and said, in a
quick whisper--
"Oh, look, Tiny, that's the church with the figures I told you about."
But Fin Rea was too late, her sister was leaning over the side of the
carriage, gazing intently at Sam Jenkles's cab, and the dark-haired
girl, with the wondrous colour and look of animation, looking so
lovingly in her companion's face; and as the carriage swept on, unseen
by the occupants of the cab, poor Tiny sank back, not fainting, but with
a pitiful sigh and a look of stony despair that made Fin clasp her
hands, as she set her little white teeth together, and muttered--
"The wretch!"
Lady Rea saw nothing of this; but Aunt Matty, who was beside her, did,
and a look of quiet triumph came into her withered features. But
nothing was said, and as for the cab, it rolled on and on quickly, till
it came to the tree-shadowed hill beneath Lady Coutts' park, and then,
after a long walk up to the top of Highgate Hill, on and on again, till
London was far behind, the soft green meads and the sheltered lanes
reached; and while Sam pulled up at a roadside public-house, amongst
half a dozen fragrant, high-laden hay carts, Richard led off his charge,
with sinking heart, over a stile, and away midst waving cornfields,
bright with poppy and bugloss; and by hedges wreathed with great white
convolvuli, and the twining, tendrilled bryonies, or wild clematis.
Richard was grave, and his heart sank as he saw the joyous air of the
young girl by his side, felt the light touch of her little hand, and
when he met her eyes read in them so much gentle, trusting love, that he
felt as if he had been a scoundrel to her, and that he was about to
blight her life.
He was not a vain man, and he had used no arts to gain the sympathy that
it was easy to read in the sweet face beside him but he could not help
telling himself that it was but too plain; and he groaned in his heart
as he thought of that which he had determined to say.
"Hark, listen!" cried the girl, as a lark rose from the corn close by.
"Isn't it beautiful? How different to those poor caged things in our
street. Look, too, at the green there--four, five, twenty different
tints upon those trees. Oh, you are losing half the beauties of those
banks! Look at them, scarlet with poppies! There, too, the crimson
valerian. How beautiful the foxgloves are! Why, there's a white one.
Who'd ever think that London could be so near!"
She stopped, panting, and held her hand to her side.
"You are tired?" he said, anxiously.
"Oh no," she said, darting a grateful look in return for his
sympathy--"it is nothing. I feel as if I should like to set off and
run, but I think sometimes I am not so strong as I used to be. Mamma
says I have outgrown my strength; but it is my cough."
She said these last words plaintively, and there was a sad, pinched look
in her face as she gazed up at him; but it lit up again directly as she
met his eager, earnest eyes fixed upon her, and her trembling little
hand stole farther through his arm.
"That's right," he said, patting it--"lean on me. I'm big and strong."
"May I?" she said, softly.
"To be sure," he answered.
"It's very kind of you," she whispered, "and I like it. I go out so
little, and yet I long to; and if I don't stay here long, I shall have
seen so little of the world."
"Netta, my child," he exclaimed, "what are you saying?"
The girl's other hand was laid upon his arm, as they stood beneath a
shady tree, and she looked up at him in a dreamy way.
"I think sometimes," she said, slowly, "that I shall not be here long.
It's my cough, I suppose. It's so pleasant to feel, though, that
people--some one cares for me; only it makes me feel that I shall not
want to go."
"Come, come, this is nonsense," he said, cheerily. "Why, you're not an
invalid."
"I should be, I think, if we were rich," she said, sadly. "But let's go
on along by that high sand bank, where the flowers are growing; and here
is a wood all deep shades of green."
"But you will be tired?"
"No, no; you said I might rest on you. I should not be weak if I could
live out here, and dear mamma were not compelled to work. Poor mamma!"
They walked on in silence, and she leaned more heavily upon his arm.
Twice their eyes met, and as Netta's fell before those of her companion
it was not until they had told the sweet, pure love of her young heart.
They were no fiery, rapturous glances--no looks of passionate ecstasy;
but the soft, beaming maiden love of an innocent, trusting girl, whose
young heart was opening, like a flower, to offer its fragrant sweets to
the man who had first spoken gentle words to her--words that had seemed
to her, who had not had girlhood's joys, like the words of love. And
that young heart had opened under the influence, like the scented
rosebud in the sun; but there was a fatal canker there, and as the
flower bloomed, the withering was at hand.
"Let us stop here," cried Netta, drinking in the beauty of the scene;
"it is like being young again, when we were so happy--when mamma watched
for papa's coming, and there seemed no trouble in life. Oh, it has been
a cruel time!"
She shuddered, and clung to the arm which supported her.
"This is very wrong of me," she said, looking up, and smiling the next
moment. "I ought not to talk of the past like that."
"Shall we sit down here?" he said, pointing to a fallen tree trunk.
Then, with the low hum of the insects round them, they entered the edge
of the wood.
He sat looking at her in silence for a few moments, and twice her eyes
were raised to his with so appealing and tender a look that he felt
unmanned. He had brought her there to tell her something, and her love
disarmed him; so that he snatched at a chance to put off that which he
wished to say.
"You were telling me of the happy past," he said. "Your were well off
once?"
"Yes, and so happy," said the girl, her eyes filling with tears. "I
ought not, perhaps, to tell you, though."
"You may trust me, Netta," he said, taking her hand.
"I always felt that I could," she cried, eagerly, as her face flushed
more deeply, and her hand trembled in his; for he had again called her
Netta, and her heart throbbed with joy, even though he was so grave.
"Shall I tell you?"
"Yes--tell me; but are you weary?"
"Oh, no, no," she said, excitedly. "But I must not mention names.
Mamma wishes ours kept secret, for she is very proud. Papa is an
officer, and as I remember him first, he was so handsome, even as mamma
was beautiful. We used to live in a pretty cottage, just outside town,
and papa was so kind. But how it came about I never knew, he gradually
grew cold, and hard, and stern, so that I was afraid of him when he came
to see us, and he used to be angry to mamma, and then stay away for
weeks together, then months, till at last we rarely saw him. The pretty
cottage was sold, with everything in it--even my presents; and mamma and
I lived in lodgings. And then trouble used to come about money; for
poor mamma would be half distracted when none was sent her, and this
dreadful neglected state went on, till mamma said she could bear it no
more. Then she used to go out and give lessons; but that was terribly
precarious work, and soon after she used to work with her needle."
"And your father?" said Richard.
"Never came," said Netta--"at least, very rarely. But I ought not to
tell you more."
"Can you not trust me?" he said, with a smile.
"Oh, yes, yes, yes," cried the girl, impetuously, and she nestled closer
to him. "I can trust you. It was like this:--Papa was a Roman
Catholic, and mamma had always brought me up in her own Protestant
religion; and by degrees I found out he had made a point of that, and
had told mamma that their marriage was void, as it had only been
performed according to one church. He used to write and tell her that
he was free, and that if she would give up every claim on him, and
promise to write to that effect, he would settle a regular income upon
her."
"And your mamma?"
"I heard her say once to herself that it would be disgracing me, and
that she would sooner we starved. That is why we have worked so hard,
and had to live in such dreadful places," said the girl, shuddering.
"My poor child!" he said, tenderly. "Yours has been a hard life, and
you so delicate."
"I shall grow strong now," she said, half shyly; "but why do you call me
child?"
She looked up in his face with a smile, half playful, half tender--a
look that made him shiver.
"You are not cross with me?" she said, gazing at him piteously.
"Cross? No," he said, gently.
And he once more took her hand, trying hard to begin that which he had
brought her there to tell, but as far off as ever. At the end of a
minute, though, she gave him the opportunity, by saying naively--
"You have never told me anything about yourself. Mamma wondered what
you were--so different to everybody we meet."
"Let me tell you, Netta," he said, earnestly. "And promise me this--
that we are still to be great friends."
She looked at him wonderingly.
"Yes, of course," she said. "Why should we not be? You have always
been so kind."
He paused for a moment or two; and then, there in the calm of that
shadowy wood, with the sunbeams coming like golden arrows through the
leafy boughs, and the distant twitter of some bird for interruption, he
told her of his own life and troubles, watching her bright, animated
face as she listened eagerly, sometimes laying her hand confidingly upon
his arm, till his tale approached the chapters of his love; and now,
impassioned in his earnestness, he half forgot the listener at his side,
till, in the midst of his declaration of love and trust and fidelity to
Valentina Rea, he became aware of a faint sigh, and he had just time to
catch the poor girl as she was slipping from the tree trunk to the
ground.
"Poor child!" he said, raising her in his arms, gazing in the pale face,
and kissing her forehead. "It was a cruel kindness, for Heaven knows I
never thought of this."
He sat holding her for a few moments, as animation came slowly back,
till at last her eyes opened, looking wonderingly in his; and then, as
recollection returned, she put up her two hands as if in prayer, and
said, piteously--
"Take me home--please, take me home."
"Netta, my child," cried Richard, sinking at her feet, "recollect your
promise--that we were to be friends. I have hurt you--I have wounded
you. I call God to witness that I never meant it!"
A sad smile quivered for a moment on her poor white lips, as he kissed
her hands again and again; and then, as the full reality of all she had
heard came upon her, she uttered a low, heart-breaking wail, and sank
upon the ground amidst the ferns and grass, covered her face with her
hands, and sobbed aloud.
"My God, what have I done?" exclaimed Richard, hoarsely. "Netta, my
child, I tried to be kind to you, and it has all turned to gall and
bitterness. For Heaven's sake, tell me you forgive me--that you do not
think me base and cruel. Netta, pray--pray speak to me."
She dropped her hands in her lap, and raised her blank white face to
his.
"You believe me?" he cried, hoarsely.
"Yes, yes," she said, piteously. "It was my fault. I thought--I
thought--"
"Hush, my poor darling!" he whispered, "I know what you would say. I
should have known better."
"No," she said, sweetly, and her trembling voice was so piteous that the
tears rose to the strong man's eyes. "It was I who should have known
better, Richard--I, who have only a few short months to stay on earth."
"Netta!" he cried, and his voice was wild and strange.
"Yes, it is true," she said, simply--"it is quite true; but you came
like sunshine to my poor dark life, and I could not help it--I thought
you loved me."
"And I do, my child, dearly, as I would a sister!" he exclaimed,
passionately, as he raised her up, and kissed her forehead. "Netta, I
would have given my right hand sooner than have caused you pain."
"Don't blame yourself," she said, softly, extricating herself from his
arms; "I should have known better. Take me home--take me home!"
She caught at his arm after trying to walk alone, and looked pitifully
in his face.
"You see," she whispered, "it was a dream--a dream; but so bright, and
now--"
She reeled, and would have fallen but for the strong arm flung round
her; and Richard held her for a few moments till she recovered.
"Richard," she whispered, sadly, "forgive me if I was unmaidenly and
bold; but it seemed so short a time that I should be here, that I could
not act as others do. But take me home--take me home."
She seemed half fainting, and raised he handkerchief to her lips, to
take it down stained with blood. Then, shuddering slightly, she turned
her face to his, smile faintly, and laid one little thin hand upon his
breast, before hanging almost inanimate upon his arm.
Richard uttered a groan as he raised her in his arms, and bore her
rapidly into the lane, where, at the distance of a hundred yards, stood
the cab, with Batty grazing comfortably, and Sam Jenkles dozing on his
box.
"Taken ill--quick!" gasped Richard, as he lifted his burden into the
vehicle. "Quick--London--the first doctor's."
Volume 3, Chapter X.