A Changed Heart Part 29

"Who was it you walked into town with this morning?" she asked, glaring harder than ever.

Catty had told, then. All the blood in Nathalie's body seemed blazing in her face, as she answered:

"It was Captain Cavendish. I chanced to meet him near the gate, and I could not very well help his walking back to town with me."

"Didn't you promise me," said Lady Leroy, still speaking with astonishing calmness, but clawing the air fiercely with both hands, "when I forbade you going with him, that you would walk with him no more?"

"No," said Nathalie. "I said he would come here no more, and neither he shall."

"Until I am dead, I suppose," said the old woman, with a laugh that was very unpleasant to hear, "and you have all my money. Answer me one question, Natty. Are you engaged to him? Don't tell a lie."

"No," said Nathalie, proudly, "I am not in the habit of telling deliberate lies. I am!"

Lady Leroy gave a shrill gasp, her fingers working convulsively, but the spasm was over in a moment. She sat up again; and Nathalie, hurriedly and imploringly, went on:

"Dear Mrs. Leroy, don't be angry! Indeed, you misjudge Captain Cavendish; he is a good and honorable man, and respects you much. Dear Mrs. Leroy, consent to our engagement and I will be the happiest girl in the world!"

She went over and put her arms round the mummy's neck, kissing the withered face. The old woman pushed her away with another of her unpleasant laughs.

"There--there, child! do as you please. I knew you would do it anyway, only I won't have him here--mind. I won't have him here! Now, get to work at them bills. What's the matter with your mother?"

"Sick headache," said Nathalie, chilled, she scarcely knew why, by the old woman's manner. "She wanted me to stay with her this afternoon; but I told her I was afraid you could not spare me."

Mrs. Leroy mused a few moments, while Nathalie wrote, and then looked up.

"I'll spare you this afternoon, Natty, since your mother is sick. You can take the bills in with you and collect them. If you are back by nine, it will do."

Nathalie was so amazed, she dropped her pen and sat staring, quite unable to return a word of thanks, and not quite certain she was not dreaming.

"Get on, get on!" exclaimed Lady Leroy, in her customary testy tone.

"You'll never have the bills done at that rate."

Nathalie finished the bills mechanically, and with a mind far otherwise absorbed. Then she went to her room, and put on her hat and mantle for another walk to Speckport; but all the time that uneasy feeling of doubt and uncertainty remained. Mrs. Leroy had acted so strangely, had been so ominously quiet and unlike herself, and had not consented. Nathalie came in dressed for town, and bent over her, until her long bright curls swept the yellow old face.

"Dear Mrs. Leroy!" she pleadingly said, "I cannot feel satisfied until you actually say you agree to this engagement. Do--do, if you love your Natty, for all my happiness depends upon it. Do say you consent, and I will never offend you again as long as I live?"

Lady Leroy glared up at her with green, and glittering, and wicked old eyes.

"If I don't consent, will you break off, Natty?"

"You know I cannot. I love him with all my heart. Oh, Mrs. Leroy!

remember you were once young yourself, and don't be hard!"

Looking at that dry and withered old antediluvian, it was hard to imagine her ever young--harder still to imagine her knowing anything about the fever called love. She pushed Nathalie impatiently away.

"Get along with you, and don't bother!" was her cry. "I told you to have your way, and you ought to be satisfied. You won't give in to me, but you'd like me to give in to you--wouldn't you? Go along, and don't torment me!"

When Mrs. Leroy's cracked voice grew shrill and piercing, and her little eyes gleamed greenish flame, Nathalie knew better than to irritate her by disobedience. She turned to go, with a strange sinking of the heart.

"I will be back by nine," she said, simply, as she quitted the room.

Miss Nettleby, seated at her cottage door, under the roses and sweetbrier, industriously st.i.tching on some gossamer article to be worn next Tuesday evening, looked up in some surprise at sight of Miss Marsh on her way to Speckport, for the second time that day.

"Going back to town, Miss Natty?" she called out, familiarly.

Miss Natty's answer was a cold and formal bow, as she pa.s.sed on. Cherrie dropped her work and started up.

"I'll go to the house and have a talk with Granny Grumpy herself before she comes back. Perhaps I may find out something. I wonder what sort of humor she is in."

Lady Leroy was in uncommonly serene humor for her. Before Nathalie had been ten minutes gone, she had shouted for Midge; and that household treasure appearing, with sleeves rolled up over her elbows, and in a very soapy and steamy state, had desired her to array herself in other garments, and go right away into Speckport.

"Go into Speckport!" cried Midge, in shrill indignation. "I'll see you boiled alive first, ma'am, and that's the long and short of it. Go into town, wash-day, indeed! What do you want in town, ma'am?"

"I want Mr. Darcy--that's what I want!" vehemently replied her mistress.

"I want Mr. Darcy, you ugly little imp; and if you don't go straight after him, I'll heave this at your head, I will!"

"This" was a huge black case bottle, which trifle of gla.s.s the lady of Redmon brandished in a manner that made even Midge draw back a few paces in alarm.

"I want Mr. Darcy on important business, I do!" screamed Lady Leroy.

"And tell him not to let the gra.s.s grow under his feet on the way. Be off, will you?"

"Why didn't you tell Miss Natty?" sulkily said Midge.

"Because she isn't coming back till nine o'clock, that's why; and I can't wait. Well, what do you want, young woman?"

This last polite interrogation was addressed to Miss Nettleby, who stood smiling in the doorway, in all the splendor of her charms.

"I just ran up to see how you were," said Cherrie. "If you want any errand done in the town, Mrs. Leroy, I'll go. I can walk faster than Midge, you know."

"So she can," cried Midge; "let her go, ma'am; I won't."

With which Midge waddled off, making the hall quake with her airy tread.

Mrs. Leroy looked with unusual graciousness at the young lady.

"Will you go, Cherrie, and be quick about it. Tell Darcy to hurry; you can drive back with him, you know."

Cherrie wanted nothing better, and was off like a dart, scenting a secret, and determined to get at the bottom of it.

"What does she want with her lawyer, I wonder?" soliloquized Cherrie, on the road. "I'll find out. Miss Natty's out of the way, and Midge will be down in the kitchen. I'll find out."

Mr. Darcy was one of the best lawyers in the town, and was Lady Leroy's man of business ever since her advent in Speckport. Cherrie found him in his office--a handsome and gentlemanly old man, with gray hair, whiskers, and mustache, and a clear, bright eye.

"What can the old lady want?" he wondered, aloud, putting on his hat; "she didn't tell you, I suppose? Will you drive back with me, Miss Cherrie?"

Miss Cherrie consented, and they had a very pleasant drive together, the old gentleman chaffing her about her beaux, and wanting to know when she was going to stop breaking hearts, and get married. Cherrie did not say "next Tuesday," she only laughed, and desired to be set down at her own gate.

There she watched the lawyer out of sight, and then went deliberately after him. Not to the front door, however, but to a back window she knew of, easily lifted, through it, up-stairs on tiptoe, and into Nathalie's room, which she locked on the inside. Nathalie's room adjoined Lady Leroy's, and the wall being thin, the conversation of the lawyer and the old woman was distinctly audible. Cherrie sat down on the floor, with her ear glued to the wall, and listened. It was a prolonged and excited talk, the lawyer angrily protesting, Mrs. Leroy angrily determined; and it ended in Mr. Darcy's yielding, but grumblingly, and still under protest. Cherrie had fairly held her breath while listening--astonishment and delight pictured on her face.

There was a long silence; Mr. Darcy was writing. In half an hour his task was completed, and he read it aloud to the mistress of Redmon.