Heriot's Choice Part 59

'Rex is a regular Bohemian since he took to wearing a moustache and a velvet coat. All the Hampstead young ladies are breaking their hearts over him. He looks so handsome and picturesque; if he would only cut his hair shorter, and open his sleepy eyes, I should admire him myself.'

Polly sighed.

'I wish he would come home, dear old fellow. I long to see him; but I am dreadfully angry with him, all the same; he ought to have written to Dr.

Heriot, if not to me. It is disrespectful--unkind--not like Rex at all.'

And Polly's bright eyes swam with tears of genuine resentment.

'I shall tell Roy how you take his unkindness to heart.'

She shook her head.

'It is very ungrateful of him, to say the least of it. You have spoiled him, Polly.'

'No,' she returned, very gravely. 'Rex is too good to be spoiled: he must have some reason for his silence. If he had told me he was going to be married--to--to any of those young ladies you mention, I would have gone to London to see his wife. I know,' she continued, softly, 'Rex was fonder of me than he was of Olive and Chriss. I was just like a favourite sister, and I always felt as though he were my own--own brother. Why there is nothing that I would not do for Rex.'

'Dear Polly, we all know that; you have been the truest little sister to him, and to us all.'

'Yes, and then for him to treat me like this--to be silent six whole weeks. Perhaps he did not like Aunt Milly writing. Perhaps he thought I ought to have written to him myself; and I have since--two long letters.'

'Dr. Heriot will be angry with Rex if he sees you fretting.'

'I am not fretting; I never fret,' she returned, indignantly; 'as though that foolish boy deserved it. I am happier than I can tell you. Oh, Richard, is he not good?'

And there was no mistaking the sweet earnestness with which she spoke of her future husband.

'Ah, that he is.'

'How grave you look, Richard! Are you really glad--really and truly, I mean?'

'Why, Polly, what a little Jesuit you are, diving into people's secret thoughts in this way.' And there was a shadow of embarra.s.sment in Richard's cordial manner. 'Of course I am glad that you should be happy, dear, and not less so that Dr. John's solitary days are over.'

'Yes, but you don't think me worthy of him,' she returned, plaintively, and yet shrewdly.

'I don't think you really grown up, you mean; you wear long dresses, you are quite a fashionable young lady now, but to me you always seem little Polly.'

'Rude boy,' she returned, with a charming pout, 'one would think you had gray hairs, to listen to you. I can't be so very young or so very silly, or he would not have chosen me, you know.'

'I suppose you have bewitched him,' returned Richard, smiling; but Polly refused to hear any more and ran away laughing.

Richard's face clouded over his thoughts when he was left alone.

Whatever they were he kept them locked in his own breast; during the few days he remained at home, he was observant of all that pa.s.sed under his eyes, and there was a deferential tenderness in his manner to Mildred that somewhat surprised her; but neither to her nor to any other person did he hint that he was disappointed by Dr. Heriot's choice.

During the first day there had been no mention of Kirkleatham or Ethel Trelawny, but on the second day Richard had himself broken the ice by suggesting that Mildred should contrive some errand that should take her thither, and that in the course of her visit she should mention his arrival at the vicarage.

'I must think of her, Aunt Milly; we are neither of us ready to undergo the awkwardness of a first meeting. Perhaps in a few months things may go on much as usual. I always meant to write to her before my ordination. Tell her that I shall only be here for a few days--that Polly wants me to wait over her birthday, but that I have no intention of intruding on her.'

'Are you so sure she will regard it as an intrusion?' asked Mildred, quietly.

'There is no need to debate the question,' was the somewhat hasty reply.

'I must not deviate from the rule I have laid down for myself, to see as little as possible of her until after my ordination.'

'And that will be at Whitsuntide?'

'Yes,' he returned, with an involuntary sigh; 'so, Aunt Milly, you will promise to go after dinner?'

Mildred promised, but fate was against her. Olive and Polly had driven over to Appleby with Dr. Heriot, and relays of callers detained her unwillingly all the afternoon; she saw Richard was secretly chafing, as he helped her to entertain them with the small talk usual on such occasions. He was just bidding a cheerful good-bye to Mrs. Heath and her sister, when horses' hoofs rung on the beck gravel of the courtyard, and Ethel rode up to the door, followed by her groom.

Mildred grew pale from sympathy when she saw Richard's face, but there was no help for it now; she saw Ethel start and flush, and then quietly put aside his a.s.sistance, and spring lightly to the ground; but she looked almost as white as Richard himself when she came into the room, and not all her dignity could hide that she was trembling.

'I did not know, I thought you were alone,' she faltered, as Mildred kissed her; but Richard caught the whisper.

'You shall be alone if you wish it,' he returned, trying to speak in his ordinary manner, but failing miserably.

Poor lad, this unexpected meeting with his idol was too much even for his endurance. 'I was not prepared for it,' as he said afterwards. He thought she looked sweeter than ever under the influence of that girlish embarra.s.sment. He watched her anxiously as she stood still holding Mildred's hand.

'You shall not be made uncomfortable, Miss Trelawny; it is my fault, not yours, that I am here. I told Aunt Milly to prevent this awkwardness. I will go, and then you two will be alone together;' and he was turning to the door, but Ethel's good heart prompted her to speak, and prevented months of estrangement.

'Why should you go, Richard? this is your home, not mine; Mildred, ask him not to do anything so strange--so unkind.'

'But if my presence embarra.s.ses you?' he returned, with an impetuous Coeur-de-Lion look that made Ethel blush.

She could not answer.

'It will not do so if you sit down and be like yourself,' said Mildred, pleadingly. She looked at the two young creatures with half-pitying, half-amused eyes. Richard's outraged boyish dignity and Ethel's yearning overture of peace to her old favourite--it was beautiful and yet sad to watch them, she thought. 'Richard, will you ring that bell, please?'

continued the wary woman; 'Ethel has come for her afternoon cup of tea, and she does not like to be kept waiting. Tell Etta to be quick, and fetch some of her favourite seed-cake from the dining-room sideboard.'

Mildred's common sense was rarely at fault; to be matter-of-fact at such a crisis was invaluable. It restored Richard's calmness as nothing else could have done; it gave him five minutes' grace, during which he hunted for the cake and his mislaid coolness together; that neither could be found at once mattered little. Richard's overcharged feelings had safe vent in scolding Etta and creating commotion and hubbub in the kitchen, where the young master's behests were laws fashioned after the Mede and Persian type.

When he re-entered the room Mildred knew she could trust him. He found Ethel sitting by the open window with her hat and gauntlets off, enjoying the tea Mildred had provided. He carried the cake gravely to her, as though it were a mission of importance, and Ethel, who could not have swallowed a mouthful to save her life, thanked him with a sweet smile and crumbled the fragments on her plate.

By and by Mildred was called away on business. She obeyed reluctantly when she saw Ethel's appealing look.

'I shall only be away a few minutes. Give her some more tea, Richard,'

she said as she closed the door.

Richard did as he was bid; but either his hand shook or Ethel's, though neither owned to the impeachment, and the cup slipped, and some of the hot liquid was spilt on the blue cloth habit.

The laugh that followed was a very healing one. Richard was on his knees trying to undo the mischief and blaming himself in no measured terms for his awkwardness. When he saw the sparkle in Ethel's eye his brow cleared like magic.

'You are not angry with me, then?'

'Angry with you! What an idea, Richard; such a trifling accident as that. Why it has not even hurt the cloth.'

'No, but it has scalded your hand; let me look.' And as Ethel tried to hide it he held it firmly in his own.

'You see it is nothing, hardly a red spot!' but he did not let it go.

'Ethel, will you promise me one thing? No, don't draw your hand away, I shall say nothing to frighten you. I was a fool just now, but then one is a fool sometimes when one comes suddenly upon the woman one loves.