A LAGGARD IN LOVE.
As Hermia sat playing this evening all the attention she was obliged
to give to the music could not keep her uncle's words from ringing in
her ears: "He is as changeable as the moon, as I have told him many a
time." What if Frank had changed towards her, and were never to come
and see her more!
She knew, or thought she knew, the reason why Frank Derison had kept
away from Nairn Cottage for upwards of a week. On the occasion of his
last visit, when she was at the piano, and he was turning over her
music, there being no one but themselves in the room, he had suddenly
stooped and imprinted a kiss on her cheek. She had started up in a
flame of indignation, and the result had been a short but sharp
passage of arms between the two. There was a sort of half-engagement
between them (of which more hereafter), sufficiently binding, however,
in Frank's opinion, to allow of his stealing a kiss "without a fellow
being called over the coals for it as if he had committed some awful
crime." But Hermia took a totally opposite view, and Frank was made to
understand that, on no account, must he attempt to take such a liberty
again. Thereupon, the young fellow had flung out of the cottage in a
huff, and had not been near since; while Hermia, as a matter of
course, had locked herself in her bedroom, and had a good cry all to
herself.
The concert this evening went on for upwards of an hour. Then came an
interruption. Dr. Hazeldine was wanted in haste by one of his
patients.
"My father would fain have made a doctor of me," remarked Mr.
Kittaway, parenthetically, "but I said, 'Give me a business that will
leave me my own master at night, and that will ensure me from being
called out of bed to go tramping through the rain or snow at all sorts
of hours.'"
"It's nothing when you are used to it," said Clement, with a laugh.
"It seems to me very inconsiderate of people to be taken ill in the
middle of the night," remarked the old gentleman, as he peered into
his snuff-box; "matters ought to be arranged differently somehow." Mr.
Kittaway stayed about half an hour after Clement's departure. After
partaking of a small mug of warm elder wine and a soft biscuit, he,
too, took his leave.
"I think I will walk as far as Strong's, and see whether he is likely
to turn up on Sunday," said John, a few minutes later.
John was organist at the parish church, and Strong was the man who
blew the bellows for him.
"It is rather late for you to go out," observed Miss Brancker.
"The night is fine, and the walk will do me good. Besides, if Strong
is no better, I must look out for a substitute to-morrow."
Charlotte followed her brother to the garden gate.
"It seems to blow very like for rain," she said, as she held up her
hand to ascertain the way of the wind. "Had you not better take your
umbrella?"
But when the umbrella came to be looked for it could not be found.
"I must have left it at the Bank," said John, who was rather
absent-minded in small matters; "but I don't think I shall need it
to-night."
After a few more words he went his way, humming to himself one of the
airs he had been playing. His sister watched him down the street till
he was lost in the darkness; then she turned, and was on the point of
going indoors, when Frank Derison came hurrying up from the opposite
direction.
"Better late than never, Miss Brancker," he said, his thin, careless
laugh. "I suppose I'm just about in time to bid you good night."
"Just about," answered the spinster, dryly. "We had some thought of
sending the bellman round. We were anxious to know whether you were
lost, stolen, or had strayed away of your own accord."
"I daresay you know. Miss Brancker, that I sometimes try to earn a
little money by making up tradesmen's books of an evening. Well, I've
had a special job of the kind to do during the last week, and that's
why I've not been near the Cottage."
This was a little invention on Master Frank's part, made up on the
spur of the moment, and he laughed to himself when he found how
readily the simple-minded spinster took it in. In reality, his
evenings had been spent in the billiard-room of the "Crown and
Cushion." While he had offended Hermia at their last meeting, what she
had said had been a source of offence to him, and he had stayed away
purposely, if only to prove to her, as he said to himself, that he was
not going to be tied to any girl's apron-string.
"Won't you come in for a little while?" said Aunt Charlotte; "John is
out, and Hermy and I are all alone."
"Not to-night, I think, thanks all the same. My mother is not well,
and I promised not to be late home this evening." This latter
statement was also a little fiction on Frank's part.
"In that case, of course, I cannot press you to stay."
"Have you had any music to-night?" asked Frank abruptly.
"Yes, both Mr. Kittaway and Clement Hazeldine were here, but Clement
was called away to a patient, and the party broke up early."
"Confound that fellow! he's always here!" muttered Frank, between his
teeth. Then aloud: "I've brought a late rose for Hermia; perhaps you
won't mind giving it her." And with that he proceeded to detach the
flower from his button-hole.
"Why not give it her yourself? I'm sure that would be much nicer,"
said Miss Charlotte, archly. "I wonder she has not come to the gate
before now; but perhaps she doesn't know who's here. I'll go and fetch
her."
"She knows well enough who's here, the huzzy!" growled Frank under his
breath. "It's merely a try-on--that's what it is. They all do it. What
simpletons they must take us men for, to think we can't see through
their little games. But I suppose there are some born fools who
can't."
They had been standing at the wicket of the little garden which
divided the house from the road, the front door being wide open all
this time. Miss Brancker now hurried up the pathway into the Cottage.
Hermia was in none of the lower rooms. She called her by name, and
then the girl appeared at the head of the stairs, her hair unbound and
flowing over her shoulders.
"Frank is at the gate. He has brought a rose which he wishes to give
you. Won't you come down?"
"Not to-night, aunt, please. Really and truly I've a wretched
headache. Besides, my hair is down, and----"
"Bother!" exclaimed Miss Charlotte. "It wouldn't take you a second to
tie a bit of ribbon round it."
"You must really excuse me, aunt, and so must Frank. He can send me
the rose through you, if he wishes me to have it."
"That won't be half so nice as giving you it himself."
But Hermia had disappeared.
Miss Charlotte went back, rubbing her nose.
"I suppose there's been a tiff between them," she said to herself.
"Well, well! At lover's perjuries they say Jove laughs, and no doubt
he does the same at their quarrels."
Frank, with his hands deep in his pockets, was whistling in a minor
key when she reached the gate.
He laughed a laugh which was by no means as pleasant as usual, at Aunt
Charlotte's lame excuse.
"Well, here is the rose, at any rate," he said. "Let us hope she won't
disdain it as she has disdained the giver."
As he spoke he kissed the flower, and handed it to Miss Brancker.
"Pray, don't forget to tell her that my love goes with it," he added,
with another laugh. "And now, goodnight; my mother will think I'm
lost."
Then they shook hands and parted.
"I often wonder whether the young baggage is aware of the twelve
hundred pounds standing to her credit in the books of the Dulminster
Bank," he said to himself as he went along. "It would be strange if
she isn't. And yet sometimes I'm inclined to think she knows nothing
about it."
It was far from being his intention to go straight home. He turned
into the "Crown and Cushion" as a matter of course. There was time for
one last game of billiards before the house closed for the night.
Miss Brancker did not fail to give Hermia both the rose and the
message. The girl smiled faintly at the latter. The flower she put in
water, but neither then nor afterwards did she touch it with her lips,
as Aunt Charlotte told her Frank had done before sending it.
Frank Derison's mother, who had been many years a widow, was
half-cousin to Mr. Avison. At sixteen Frank had entered the Bank as
junior clerk, and there he had since remained, being treated in no way
differently from any other member of the staff, the relationship
between himself and Mr. Avison being never recognized by the latter; a
state of things which to Frank seemed exactly the reverse of that
which ought to have subsisted between the two.
Nature, if she had any intentions at all in the framing of Frank
Derison, certainly never intended him for a bank clerk. He hated his
work: indeed it is doubtful whether he would not have hated work of
any kind; but not being able to help himself, he contrived to get
through it from day to day, although in a very half-hearted and
perfunctory sort of way. John Brancker, however, had conceived a great
liking for the handsome, careless, bright-eyed young fellow, who had
always a merry laugh for everybody and everything; and he so managed
to gloss over his faults and shortcomings--which, in truth, were not
very glaring ones--as, with rare exceptions, to keep him from being
found fault with either by Mr. Avison or Mr. Hazeldine.
From this it came to pass that by-and-bye Frank began to be a somewhat
frequent visitor at Nairn Cottage, where he quite won the heart of
Miss Brancker, as he did the hearts of most people with whom he was
brought into contact. As time went on he and Hermia were naturally
thrown much together, and each began to find in the other that sweet
but dangerous quality of attraction which, as a rule, can conduce to
but one result.
Meanwhile, simple-hearted John Brancker and his equally simple-hearted
sister looked on complacently happy in the happiness of the young
people, and leaving the future, if they ever took it into
consideration at all, to solve its own problems.
One morning Frank awoke to the fact that he was of age; he also about
the same time awoke to the knowledge of another pleasant fact, to wit,
that he was in love with Hermia Rivers. He was quite persuaded that
Hermy was necessary to his happiness. Still, he was in no hurry to
declare his passion. There was a vein of cool calculation under his
laughing, happy-go-lucky exterior, the existence of which few people
except his mother were aware of, or even suspected.
He could afford to bide awhile, he told himself. Hermy was safe, there
was no other Romeo in the field; he had but to speak the word in order
at once, as with a harlequin's wand, to change her placid,
bread-and-butter, sisterly liking into a feeling infinitely more
passionate and delightful, of which he was to be the centre and focus,
and which was to render his life beautiful with the incense it would
never tire of showering round his path. What he was to give in return
for all this he did not condescend to explain even to himself. The
awkwardness of it was that his present salary at the Bank was only
ninety pounds a year. From that sum it would rise by yearly increments
of ten pounds till it reached a hundred and fifty pounds, at which
point it would stop until the chance should offer itself of his
stepping into some senior clerk's shoes; a chance, however, which
might not come to him for an indefinite number of years.
After all, a hundred and fifty pounds a year was a beggarly amount on
which to marry, and to secure even that limited happiness he would
have six years still to wait. Of course, considering the relationship
between them, Mr. Avison ought to do something more for him--ought to
shove him on specially over the heads of some of the other fellows,
or, in any case, give him a thumping advance in place of a paltry ten
pounds. It was an awful shame that he, a blood relation, should be
treated no differently from the veriest stranger, and that he should
even have to knuckle under, as far as position in the office went, to
that cad of an Ephraim Judd!
Among Frank's manifold acquaintances was a young man of the name of
Winton, who had at one time been a clerk in Avison's Bank, but had
since accepted a better-paid situation in Umpleby's Bank at
Dulminster. Winton came over once or twice a month to Ashdown to see
his relatives, on which occasions he and Derison generally contrived
to have an hour or two together at their favorite billiards.
Said Winton on one occasion, nearly a year before the time of which we
are now writing:
"I'm going to tell you a secret, old man, which you may or may not
make use of to your own advantage. That will be for you to decide when
you've heard it; only, you must first give me your sacred word of
honor never to mention it to a soul."
Frank gave the required promise without difficulty.
"I know you often visit at John Brancker's," resumed the other, "and
report has it that you're sweet on that pretty niece of his. Small
blame to you, if you are, say I. However, if you're not, perhaps
you'll think it advisable to be so when I whisper to you that in our
books at Umpleby's the very nice little sum of twelve hundred pounds
is at the present moment standing to the credit of Miss Hermia
Rivers."
"Winton, you must be dreaming," was all Derison could say, so extreme
was his astonishment.
"Not a bit of it, my boy. I've seen the account with my own eyes. Its
been accumulating for years, at the rate of eighty pounds per annum.
John comes over once a quarter, as regular as clockwork, bringing
twenty pounds with him at each visit. The probability is that he banks
with us in order that none of Avison's people may know anything of the
affair."
"But are you quite sure that the account stands in the name of Miss
Rivers, and of no one else?" asked Frank after a pause, during which
he had been trying to digest his friend's startling information.
"Of course I'm sure. Hermia Rivers, and that alone, is the name in our
ledger. I suppose honest John, having no children of his own, is
investing his savings, or some portion of them, for the benefit of his
niece. He'll be a lucky fellow that gets Miss Hermy for a wife. If I
wasn't engaged already, hang me if I wouldn't have a cut-in on my own
account."
It did not take Frank long to make up his mind what he ought to do;
the duty he owed to himself lay clearly before him. He would propose
to Hermy without a day's delay. He had loved her all along, but he
felt that she was dearer, far dearer, to him now than ever she had
been before.