When the party arrived at the hotel and Aunt Sophy was informed of what
had happened, her excitement was great. The children were caressed and
scolded in a breath. After a while, however, the enormity of their
behavior was dwelt upon by all their guardians together.
“I was saying, ma’am, that I couldn’t never take Miss Amy and Master
Johnny near to that lake again. Oh, I couldn’t! The hotel garden, I
couldn’t go farther, not with any peace of mind.”
“You hear what nurse says, children,” said Aunt Sophy; “she is quite
right. It would be impossible for me to allow you to go out again unless
you made me a promise, oh, a faithful promise.”
Amy was tired with the long walk after all the excitement; and she was
always an impressionable little thing. She began to cry and protest that
she never meant any harm, that the boat was so pretty, and that she was
sure it was fastened and could not get away. But Johnny held his ground.
“I could have doned it myself,” he said; “I know how to row. Nobody
wasn’t wanted--if that fellow had let us alone.”
“Where is the gentleman, Rosalind?” cried Mrs. Lennox. “Oh, how could
you be so ungrateful as to let him go without asking where he was to be
found? To think he should have saved those precious children and not to
know where to find him to thank him! Oh, children, only think, if you
had been brought home all cold and stiff, and laid out there never to
give any more trouble, never to go home again, never to speak to your
poor, distracted auntie, or to poor Rosalind, or to-- Oh, my darlings!
What should I have done if you had been brought home to me like that? It
would have killed me. I should never more have held up my head again.”
At this terrible prospect, and at the sight of Aunt Sophy’s tears, Amy
flung her arms as far as they would go round that portly figure, and hid
her sobs upon her aunt’s bosom. Johnny began to yield; he grew pale, and
his big eyes veiled themselves with a film of tears. To think of lying
there cold and stiff, as Aunt Sophy said, daunted the little hero. “I
could have doned it,” he said, but faltered, and his mouth began to
quiver.
“And Uncle John,” cried Mrs. Lennox, “and Rex! what would you have said
never, never to see them again?”
Johnny, in his own mind, piled up the agony still higher--and the
rabbits, and the pigeons, and his own pet guinea-pig, and his pony! He
flung himself into Aunt Sophy’s lap, which was so large, and so soft,
and so secure.
This scene moved Rosalind both to tears and laughter; for it was a
little pathetic as well as funny, and the girl was overstrained. She
would have liked to fling herself, too, into arms of love like Aunt
Sophy’s, which were full--arms as loving, but more strong. The children
did not want their mother, but Rosalind did. Her mind was moved by
sentiments more complex than Johnny’s emotions, but she had no one to
have recourse to. The afternoon brightness had faded, and the gray of
twilight filled the large room, making everything indistinct. At this
crisis the door opened and somebody was ushered into the room, some one
who came forward with a hesitating, yet eager, step. “I hope I may be
permitted, though I am without introduction, to ask if the children have
taken any harm,” he said.
“It is Mr. Everard, Aunt Sophy.” Rosalind retired to the background, her
heart beating loudly. She wanted to look on, to see what appearance he
presented to a spectator, to know how he would speak, what he would say.
“Oh!” cried Mrs. Lennox, standing up with a child in each arm, “it is
the gentleman who saved my darlings--it is your deliverer, children. Oh,
sir, what can I say to you; how can I even thank you? You have saved my
life too, for I should never have survived if anything had happened to
them.”
He stood against the light of one of the windows, unconscious of the
eager criticism with which he was being watched. Perhaps the bow he made
was a little elaborate, but his voice was soft and refined. “I am very
glad if I have been of any service,” he said.
“Oh, service! it is far, far beyond that. I hope Rosalind said something
to you; I hope she told you how precious they were, and that we could
never, never forget.”
“There is nothing to thank me for, indeed. It was more a joke than
anything else; the little things were in no danger so long as they sat
still. I was scarcely out of my depth, not much more than wading all the
time.”
“Aunt Sophy, that is what I told you,” said Johnny, withdrawing his head
from under her arm. “I could have doned it myself.”
“Oh, hush, Johnny! Whatever way it was done, what does that matter? Here
they are, and they might have been at the bottom of the lake. And you
risked your own life or your health, which comes to the same thing! Pray
sit down, Mr. Everard. If you are here,” Aunt Sophy went on, loosing her
arms from the children and sitting down with the full purpose of
enjoying a talk, “as I am, for the waters, to get drenched and to walk
home in your wet clothes must have been madness--that is, if you are
here for your health.”
“I am here for the baths, but a trifle like that could harm no one.”
“Oh, I trust not--oh, I anxiously trust not! It makes my heart stand
still even to think of it. Are you getting any benefit? It is for
rheumatism, I suppose? And what form does yours take? One sufferer is
interested in another,” Mrs. Lennox said.
He seemed to wince a little, and threw a glance behind into the dimness
to look for Rosalind. To confess to rheumatism is not interesting. He
said at last, with a faint laugh, “I had rheumatic fever some years ago.
My heart is supposed to be affected, that is all; the water couldn’t
hurt that organ; indeed I think it did good.”
Rosalind, in the background, knew that this was meant for her; but her
criticism was disarmed by a touch of humorous sympathy for the poor
young fellow, who had expected, no doubt, to appear in the character of
a hero, and was thus received as a fellow-sufferer in rheumatism. But
Mrs. Lennox naturally saw nothing ludicrous in the situation. “Mine,”
she said, “is in the joints. I get so stiff, and really to rise up after
I have been sitting down for any time is quite an operation. I suppose
you don’t feel anything of that sort? To be sure, you are so much
younger--but sufferers have a fellow-feeling. And when did you begin
your baths? and how many do you mean to take? and do you think they are
doing you any good? It is more than I can say just at present, but they
tell me that it often happens so, and that it is afterwards that one
feels the good result.”
“I know scarcely any one here,” said the young man, “so I have not been
able to compare notes; but I am not ill, only taking the baths to please
a--relation, who, perhaps,” he said with a little laugh, “takes more
interest in me than I deserve.”
“Oh, I am sure not that!” said Aunt Sophy, with enthusiasm. “But,
indeed, it is very nice of you to pay so much attention to your
relation’s wishes. You will never repent putting yourself to trouble for
her peace of mind, and I am sure I sympathize with her very much in the
anxiety she must be feeling. When the heart is affected it is always
serious. I hope, Mr. ----”
“Everard,” he said with a bow, once more just a little, as the critic
behind him felt, too elaborate for the occasion.
“I beg your pardon. Rosalind did tell me; but I was so much agitated,
almost too much to pay any attention. I hope, Mr. Everard, that you are
careful to keep yourself from all agitation. I can’t think the shock of
plunging into the lake could be good for you. Oh, I feel quite sure it
couldn’t be good. I hope you will feel no ill results afterwards. But
excitement of any sort, or agitation, that is the worst thing for the
heart. I hope, for your poor dear relation’s sake, who must be so
anxious, poor lady, that you will take every care.”
He gave a glance behind Mrs. Lennox to the shadow which stood between
him and the window. “That depends,” he said, “rather on other people
than on myself. You may be sure I should prefer to be happy and at ease
if it were in my power.”
“Ah, well!” said Aunt Sophy, “that is very true. Of course our happiness
depends very much upon other people. And you have done a great deal for
mine, Mr. Everard. It would not have done me much good to have people
telling me to be cheerful if my poor little darlings had been at the
bottom of the lake.” Here Aunt Sophy stopped and cried a little, then
went on. “You are not, I think, living at our hotel, but I hope you will
stay and dine with us. Oh, yes, I cannot take any refusal. We may have
made your acquaintance informally, but few people can have so good a
reason for wishing to know you. This is my niece, Miss Trevanion, Mr.
Everard; the little children you saved are my brother’s children--the
late Mr. Trevanion of Highcourt.”
Rosalind listened with her heart beating high. Was it possible that he
would receive the introduction as if he had known nothing of her before?
He rose and turned towards her, made once more that slightly stiff, too
elaborate bow, and was silent. No, worse than that, began to say
something about being happy to make--acquaintance.
“Aunt Sophy,” said Rosalind, stepping forward, “you are under a mistake.
Mr. Everard knows us well enough. I met him before we left Highcourt.”
And then she, too, paused, feeling with sudden embarrassment that there
was a certain difficulty in explaining their meetings, a difficulty of
which she had not thought. It was he now who had the advantage which she
had felt to lie with herself.
“It is curious how things repeat themselves,” he said. “I had once the
pleasure of recovering a boat that had floated away from Miss Trevanion
on the pond at Highcourt, but I could not have ventured to claim
acquaintance on so small an argument as that.”
Rosalind was silenced--her mind began to grow confused. It was not true
that this was all, and yet it was not false. She said nothing; if it
were wrong, she made herself an accomplice in the wrong; and Aunt
Sophy’s exclamations soon put an end to the incident.
“So you had met before!” she cried. “So you know Highcourt! Oh, what a
very small world this is!--everybody says so, but it is only now and
then that one is sensible. But you must tell us all about it at dinner.
We dine at the _table d’hôte_, if you don’t mind. It is more amusing,
and I don’t like to shut up Rosalind with only an old lady like me for
her company. You like it too? Oh, well, that is quite nice. Will you
excuse us now, Mr. Everard, while we prepare for dinner? for that is the
dressing-bell just ringing, and they allow one so little time. Give me
your hand, dear, to help me up. You see I am quite crippled,” Mrs.
Lennox said, complacently, forgetting how nimbly she had sprung from her
chair with a child under each arm to greet their deliverer. She limped a
little as she went out of the room on Rosalind’s arm. She was quite sure
that her rheumatism made her limp; but sometimes she forgot that she had
rheumatism, which is a thing that will happen in such cases now and
then.
The room was still dark. It was not Mrs. Lennox’s custom to have it
lighted before dinner, and when the door closed upon the ladies the
young man was left alone. His thoughts were full of triumph and
satisfaction, not unmingled with praise. He had attained by the chance
of a moment what he had set his heart upon, he said to himself; for
years he had haunted Highcourt for this end; he had been kept cruelly
and unnaturally (he thought) from realizing it. Those who might have
helped him, without any harm to themselves, had refused and resisted his
desire, and compelled him to relinquish it. And now in a moment he had
attained what he had so desired. Introduced under the most flattering
circumstances, with every prepossession in his favor, having had it in
his power to lay under the deepest obligation the family, the guardians
as well as the girl who, he said to himself, was the only girl he had
ever loved. Did he love Rosalind? He thought so, as Mrs. Lennox thought
she had rheumatism. Both were serious enough--and perhaps this young
stranger was not clearly aware how much it was he saw in Rosalind
besides herself. He saw in her a great deal that did not meet the
outward eye, though he also saw the share of beauty she possessed,
magnified by his small acquaintance with women of her kind. He saw her
sweet and fair and desirable in every way, as the truest lover might
have done. And there were other advantages which such a lover as Roland
Hamerton would have scorned to take into consideration, which
Rivers--not able at his more serious age to put them entirely out of his
mind--yet turned from instinctively as if it were doing her a wrong to
remember them, but which this young man realized vividly and reminded
himself of with rising exhilaration. With such a wife what might he not
do? Blot out everything that was against him, attain everything he had
ever dreamed of, secure happiness, advancement, wealth. He moved from
window to window of the dim room, waiting for the ladies, in a state of
exaltation indescribable. He had been raised at once from earth to
heaven. There was not a circumstance that was not in his favor. He was
received by them as an intimate, he was to be their escort, to be
introduced by them, to form one of their party; and Rosalind! Rosalind!
she was the only girl whom he had ever loved.