"WHAT WILL HE THINK? WHAT WILL HE SAY?"
Miss Brancker had scarcely been five minutes back at home before
Doctor Hazeldine's boy came in search of his master. The services of
the latter were required immediately at an address which the lad had
brought with him; Clem must hurry off without a moment's delay. He
would dearly have liked to give Hermia a parting kiss--it may be more
than one--but nothing had yet been said to Miss Brancker, and such a
proceeding on his part would certainly have surprised, and might
possibly have shocked, that somewhat staid though by no means
puritanical spinster. Accordingly, Clem had to content himself with a
simple pressure of Hermia's hand, but that of itself conveyed a world
of meaning from one to the other. As he was bidding her good-night, he
contrived to whisper, "I will call to-morrow after my first round, and
seek an interview with your uncle."
His words gave Hermia a certain shock. She turned hot from head to
foot. In the great rush of gladness with which Clem's confession had
filled her, she had forgotten all about the strange secret which had
been imparted to her only a few days before. She had accepted him
without telling him. What would he think of her, what would he say,
when he learned the truth? How foolish--how forgetful she had been! He
had asked her to be his wife under the belief that she was the orphan
daughter of a sister of John Brancker. What would his feelings be when
told that she was a "nobody's child"--that neither she nor those under
whose roof she had been brought up knew anything whatever about her
parentage or history, and that in all probability they never would
know? Ah, if she had but remembered to tell him before allowing his
lips to touch hers! In that case, perhaps--but it was too late to
think of that now. All she could do was to intercept Clement on the
morrow before he should have time to see her uncle--as she still
continued to call John--and tell him all.
She was on the watch for him next day, and opened the door before he
had time to knock. "Come in here, I want to speak to you," she said,
as she shut the front door behind him, and opened that of the little
parlor, the ordinary living-room of the family being on the opposite
side of the entrance-hall. As soon as they were in the room and the
door shut, Clem found it impossible to refrain from repeating the
osculatory process of the previous evening.
Hermia's resistance was not a very determined one. "It may be for the
last time," she said to herself with lips that quivered a little. "He
may never want to kiss me again after I have told him."
"Sit there," she said to him, indicating a chair. "I have something to
tell you which I ought to have told you last evening before"--(here
she blushed and hesitated for an instant)--"before I allowed you to
think that I cared for you a little; only, somehow, I don't know why,
I quite forgot all about it at the time."
She paused and drew a deep breath. Then she went on to tell him in her
own words that which John and his sister had so recently told her,
including all about the twelve hundred and odd pounds lying in her
name in the Dulminster Bank, of which she positively refused to touch
a shilling.
The young Doctor listened gravely silent, till she had finished all
she had to say. Her dark-blue eyes, a little wider open than ordinary,
were fixed on him with an air of expectancy; the sweet curve of her
lips showed a glint of pearly teeth between; her bosom was rising and
falling more quickly than ordinary; evidently she attached far more
importance than he did to the revelation she had just made him. He
gave her a reassuring smile; then he said gently,
"Would it have mattered greatly, darling, if you had never told me
this? As far as I am concerned, it certainly would not. Mr. Brancker
and his sister will still continue to be your uncle and aunt as they
have always been, and you will still continue to be their orphan
niece. Nothing is changed. Of course, it is only natural that now you
understand so much, you should be desirous of knowing more, and----"
"But I am by no means sure that I am desirous of knowing more,"
interposed Hermia, softly, and yet proudly. "Whoever my relatives may
be--that is, providing I have any at all--they have thought well to
discard me, and such being the case, I do not know why I should
trouble myself greatly about them."
"Your words are words of wisdom. Whoever the people may be who placed
you with Mr. Brancker, and whatever the connection between you and
them may be, it is quite evident that, for the present at least, they
are determined to keep their secret to themselves, and that any
attempt on your part to force it from them would probably be met by
rebuffs and disappointment. As you say, why trouble yourself about
them? Here are your true relations; here is the only home you have
ever known. Let them go their way; all you ask is to be allowed to go
yours without any interference on their part.
"You do but echo my own thoughts," said Hermia, with a heavenly smile.
"Which merely serves to prove still more clearly the affinity that
exists between us."
"Ah, but have you sufficiently considered what you are doing--what
risks you may be running in proffering to marry a nameless girl--for
how can I be sure what my name really is?--about whose parentage and
antecedents you know absolutely nothing? For aught you or I can tell
to the contrary, there may be some dreadful disgrace hanging over my
birth, or attaching itself in some way to those who have thought well
to cast me off. Think what it would be if, after your marriage,
something should come to light which would make you ashamed of your
wife, something which would cause you to wish you had never met her!
That would be enough to make her sorry she had ever been born, while,
as for you----" She ceased, her sensitive lips quivering almost
imperceptibly, while a tear shone in the corner of each of her eyes.
Again Clement smiled. "My dearest, are you not making a mountain out
of a molehill?" he said. "It is a way your sex sometimes has. For my
own part, I do not for one moment suppose that there is any disgrace,
as you choose to term it, connected with your birth or parentage, or
any secret which, if made known to the world to-morrow, you would have
the slightest cause to be ashamed of. Such cases as yours are by no
means so infrequent as you seem to think, and the explanation, when
one is forthcoming, is usually of a very commonplace kind indeed. My
advice to you is, to think as little as may be about that which Mr.
Brancker has deemed it his duty to tell you--in fact, to treat it as
though you had never heard it. You shake your head. Well, then, to
adopt for the moment your own extreme view of the matter, do you, can
you think that whatever may happen, whatever secret the future may
bring to light, such a revelation can or will influence my love in the
slightest degree, or make me care for you one jot less than I care for
you now? If you do think so, you must indeed have a contemptible
opinion of me."
"No, no," protested Hermia; "indeed I have no such opinion of you. You
know differently from that. If such were the case, is is likely that I
should have given you"---- A blush finished the sentence.
"The greatest treasure a woman can bestow on a man," said Clem,
as if he knew exactly what she would have said. "No, it is not
likely--indeed, quite the reverse. All which merely brings us round to
the point we started from. As I said at first, it would have mattered
little or nothing, as far as I am concerned, if you had never told me
all this. So now, to change the subject----"
His way of changing the subject was to encircle her waist with his
arm.
"But about the money," said Hermia, two or three minutes later,
as she stood before the chimney-glass, trying to put her hair to
rights, which, owing to some accident, had become considerably
disarranged--"about the twelve hundred pounds. Was I not right in
acting as I did?"
"My dearest and best, it was out of the question that you should have
acted otherwise. Whatever your uncle may choose to say, the money is
not yours, but his. If it pleases him to let it accumulate in your
name, well and good; no one can hinder him from doing as he likes in
the matter, but his doing so in nowise alters the facts of the case.
The money remains his just the same; he cannot give you what you are
not willing to take, and this is a kind of gift, or so it seems to me,
which it is impossible for you to accept."
"I was sure you would say so; I was sure you would think exactly as I
do in the matter," said Hermia, with shining eyes. "What will uncle
and aunt say now?"
"Which reminds me that I have not yet had my little interview with
your uncle," said Clem. "But as I can't stay much longer--for a
doctor's time is never his own--and as one should never omit to gather
honey while one has the chance," he added artfully, "it seems to me
that it will be better to put off my interview with Mr. Brancker till
this evening, or to-morrow."
"Indeed, sir, but you will do no such thing," cried Hermia. "I begin
to discern a certain selfishness of disposition about you, which I
trust you will do your utmost to check while it is yet in the bud. I
will ask Uncle John to come at once, in case any of your poor patients
should fancy you are neglecting them," and before Clem could intercept
her she was gone.
On the interview between the young doctor and John Brancker it is not
needful that we should dwell. Presently Miss Brancker was called into
the room by her brother. The kind-hearted spinster could not help
letting fall a few tears when told the news, although she had not been
without her suspicions of what was in the air for some time past.
"There is no one in the wide world," she said, with fervor, "to whom
my brother and I would sooner entrust our darling than to you, Mr.
Clement. And as for her, she is worthy of all the care and love which
any man can bestow on her."
"On that point I am quite sure," replied Clem, earnestly, "and if I
know anything of myself, she will never lack either one or the other
at my hands."
Then John brought up the subject of the twelve hundred pounds. It
would be such a nice little nest-egg to start housekeeping with, he
said. Clem only laughed, and replied that both he and Hermia were
fully agreed that the money belonged to John and to him only, and that
neither by deed or gift nor in any other form would Hermia accept a
shilling of it.
"Then hang me!" cried John, with what for him was a burst of passion,
as he banged his fist on the table, "if I don't give every farthing of
it to the Dulminster Hospital."
"I question whether you could put it to a better purpose," was all the
consolation he got from Clem.
But already in Miss Brancker's brain a scheme was germinating for
getting rid of the golden incubus after an altogether different
fashion.
Said John to his sister after Clement had gone, "I am not quite sure,
my dear, that we are justified in giving our sanction to Hermy's
engagement without having first obtained Mr. Hodgson's leave to do so.
There may be something in the background of which you and I know
nothing, to render such an engagement objectionable to Hermy's unknown
relatives; for, of course, the dear girl must have relatives
somewhere. I am afraid we have acted rather precipitately in the
matter, and that we ought first to have taken Mr. Hodgson's opinion on
the occasion of his next visit."
"You seem to forget one little fact, my dear, which is, that you could
not very well help yourself," replied his sister, dryly. "You, at
least, have no legal control over Hermy, and I question very much
whether Mr. Hodgson has. I consider that it was very nice on her part
to pay you the compliment, through her lover, of asking your consent
to an arrangement which it was not in your power to forbid, or
interfere with in any way."
This was a way of looking at the affair such as had never struck John,
but he could not help acknowledging that there was a certain amount of
force in it. "For all that," he said, dubiously, "I should have been
better satisfied if Mr. Hodgson had known of and approved the
engagement."
"When you adopted Hermia, it was understood, although there was no
specific arrangement to that effect, that she should become to you the
same as if she were, your own child. We wanted no money with her,
indeed we would not accept of any, and although Mr. Hodgson has
insisted on forwarding a cheque every quarter, we know how each has
been disposed of as it came to hand. I fail to see, therefore, what
claim Mr. Hodgson, or those who are at his back, have upon the girl's
future, or by what right they could, assuming them to be so disposed,
attempt to exercise any control over her. If she needed to be
controlled by anyone, which, thank heaven, she doesn't, you are the
only person, if there is such a thing as moral law, who has any right
to exercise authority over her; and Hermia herself would be the first
to declare that she would recognize no one's wishes, either in this or
other matters, than yours."
It was only on very rare occasions that Aunt Charlotte launched out in
this style, but whenever she did, John was wise enough to know that
his only plan was to strike his colors at once.
He did so on the present occasion. "In any case," he said, "there can
be no possible harm in my mentioning to Mr. Hodgson, when I see him
next, the fact of Hermia's engagement;" and with that he made haste to
change the subject.