A Life's Secret Part 25

The singing ceased, and in the movement which it occasioned in the room, Austin left Mrs. Hunter's side, and stood within the embrasure of the window, half hidden by the curtains. The air was pleasant on that warm summer night, and Florence, resigning her place at the instrument to some other lady, stole to the window to inhale its freshness. There she saw Austin. She had not heard him enter the room--did not know, in fact, that he was back from Ketterford.

'Oh!' she uttered, in the sudden revulsion of feeling that the sight brought to her, 'is it you?'

He quietly took her hands in his, and looked down at her. Had it been to save her life, she could not have helped betraying emotion.

'Are you glad to see me, Florence?' he softly whispered.

She coloured even to tears. Glad! The time might come when she should be able to tell him so; but that time was not yet.

'Mrs. Hunter is glad of my return,' he continued, in the same low tone, sweeter to her ear than all music. 'She says I have been missed. Is it so, Florence?'

'And what have you been doing?' asked Florence, not knowing in the least what she said in her confusion, as she left his question unanswered, and drew her hands away from him.

'I have not been doing much, save the seeing a dear old friend laid in the earth. You know that Mrs. Thornimett is dead. She died before I got there.'

'Papa told us that. He heard from you two or three times, I think. How you must regret it! But why did they not send for you in time?'

'It was only the last day that danger was apprehended,' replied Austin.

'She grew worse suddenly. You cannot think, Florence, how strangely this gaiety'--he half turned to the room--'contrasts with the scenes I have left: the holy calm of her death-chamber, the laying of her in the grave.'

'An unwelcome contrast, I am sure it must be.'

'It jars on the mind. All events, essentially of the world, let them be ever so necessary or useful, must do so, when contrasted with the solemn scenes of life's close. But how soon we forget those solemn scenes, and live in the world again!'

'Austin,' she gently whispered, 'I do not like to talk of death. It reminds me of the dread that is ever oppressing me.'

'She looks so much better as to surprise me,' was his answer, unconscious that it betrayed his undoubted cognisance of the 'dread' she spoke of.

'If it would but last!' sighed Florence. 'To prolong mamma's life, I think I would sacrifice mine.'

'No, you would not, Florence--in mercy to her. If called upon to lose her you would grow reconciled to it; to do so, is in the order of nature. _She_ could not spare _you_.'

Florence believed that she never could grow reconciled to it: she often wondered _how_ she should bear it when the time came. But there rose up before her now, as she spoke with Austin, one cheering promise, 'As thy day is, so shall thy strength be.'

'What should you say, if I tell you I have come into a fortune!' resumed Austin, in a lighter tone.

'I should say--But, is it true?' broke off Florence.

'Not true, as you and Mr. Hunter would count fortunes,' smiled Austin; 'but true, as poor I, born without silver spoons in my mouth, and expecting to work hard for all I shall ever possess, have looked upon them. Mrs. Thornimett has behaved to me most kindly, most generously; she has bequeathed to me two thousand pounds.'

'I am delighted to hear it,' said Florence, her glad eyes sparkling.

'Never call yourself poor again.'

'I cannot call myself rich, as Mr. and Mrs. Hunter compute riches. But, Florence, it may be a stepping-stone to become so.'

'A stepping-stone to become what?' demanded Dr. Bevary, breaking in upon the conference.

'Rich,' said Austin, turning to the doctor. 'I am telling Florence that I have come into some money since I went away.'

Mr. Hunter and others were gathering around them, and the conversation became general. 'What is that, Clay?' asked Mr. Hunter. 'You have come into a fortune, do you say?'

'I said, _not_ into a fortune, sir, as those accustomed to fortune would estimate it. That great physician, standing there and listening to me, he would laugh at the sum: I daresay he makes more in six months. But it may prove a stepping-stone to fortune, and to--to other desirable things.'

'Do not speak so vaguely,' cried the doctor, in his quaint fashion.

'Define the "desirable things." Come! it's my turn now.'

'I am not sure that they have taken a sufficiently tangible shape as yet, to be defined,' returned Austin, in the same tone. 'You might laugh at them for day-dreams.'

Unwittingly his eye rested for a moment upon Florence. Did she deem the day-dreams might refer to her, that her eye-lids should droop, and her cheeks turn scarlet? Dr. Bevary noticed both the look and the signs; Mr.

Hunter saw neither.

'Day-dreams would be enchanting as an eastern fairy-tale, only that they never get realized,' interposed one of the fair guests, with a pretty simper, directed to Austin Clay and his attractions.

'I will realize mine,' he returned, rather too confidently, 'Heaven helping me!'

'A better stepping-stone, that help, to rely upon, than the money you have come into,' said Dr. Bevary, with one of his peculiar nods.

'True, doctor,' replied Austin. 'But may not the money have come from the same helping source? Heaven, you know, vouchsafes to work with humble instruments.'

The last few sentences had been interchanged in a low tone. They now pa.s.sed into the general circle, and the evening went on to its close.

Austin and Dr. Bevary were the last to leave the house. They quitted it together, and the doctor pa.s.sed his arm within Austin's as they walked on.

'Well,' said he, 'and what have you been doing at Ketterford?'

'I have told you, doctor. Leaving my dear old friend and relative in her grave; and, realizing the fact that she has bequeathed to me this money.'

'Ah, yes; I heard that,' returned the doctor. 'You've been seeing friends too, I suppose. Did you happen to meet the Gwinns?'

'Once. I was pa.s.sing the house, and Miss Gwinn laid hands upon me from the window, and commanded me in. I got out again as soon as I could. Her brother made his appearance as I was leaving.'

'And what did he say to you?' asked the doctor, in a tone meant to be especially light and careless.

'Nothing; except that he told me if I wanted a safe and profitable investment for the money I had inherited under Mrs. Thornimett's will, he could help me to one. I cut him very short, sir.'

'What did _she_ say?' resumed Dr. Bevary. 'Did she begin upon her family affairs--as she is rather fond of doing?'

'Well,' said Austin, his tone quite as careless as the doctor's, 'I did not give her the opportunity. Once, when she seemed inclined to do so, I stopped her; telling her that her private affairs were no concern of mine, neither should I listen to them.'

'Quite right, my young friend,' emphatically spoke the doctor.

Not another word was said until they came to Daffodil's Delight. Here they wished each other good night The doctor continued his way to his home, and Austin turned down towards Peter Quale's.

But what could be the matter? Had Daffodil's Delight miscalculated the time, believing it to be day, instead of night? Women leaned out of their windows in night-caps; children had crept from their beds and come forth to tumble into the gutter naked, as some of them literally were; men crowded the doorway of the Bricklayers' Arms, and stood about with pipes and pint pots; all were in a state of rampant excitement. Austin laid hold of the first person who appeared sober enough to listen to him. It happened to be a woman, Mrs. Dunn.

'What is this?' he exclaimed. 'Have you all come into a fortune?' the recent conversation at Mr. Hunter's probably helping him to the remark.

'Better nor that,' shrieked Mrs. Dunn. 'Better nor _that_, a thousand times! We have circ.u.mvented the masters, and got our ends, and now we shall just have all we want--roast goose and apple pudding for dinner, and plenty of beer to wash it down with.'