Lady Good-for-Nothing Part 59

"Nevertheless it would be kind of you to make us acquainted.

Indeed," she went on, "I very earnestly desire it, having a great need--since you are so hard to thank directly--to thank you through somebody for many things, and especially for helping d.i.c.ky."

He laughed grimly as he fell into step with her, or tried to--but his obstinate stride would not be corrected. "All the powers that ever were," he said, "could not hinder d.i.c.ky. He has his captaincy in sight--at his age!--and will be flying the blue before he reaches forty. Mark my words."

On their way up the ascent of Lansdowne Hill he told her much concerning d.i.c.ky--not of his success in the service, which she knew already, but of the service's inner opinion of him, which set her blood tingling. She glanced sideways once or twice at the strong, awkward man who, outpaced by the stripling, could rejoice in his promotion without one twinge of jealousy, loving him merely as one good sailor should love another. She noted him as once or twice he tried to correct his pace by hers. Her thoughts went back to the tablet in the Abbey, commemorating a husband who (if it told truth) had never been hers. She compared him, all in charity, with two who had given her an unpaid devotion. One slept at Lisbon, in the English cemetery. The other walked beside her even with such a tread as out somewhere on the dark floor of the sea he had paced his quarter-deck many a night through, pausing only to con his helm beneath the stars.

They turned aside into an unfashionable by-street, and halted before a modest door in a row. Ruth noted the railings, that they were spick-and-span as paint could make them; the dainty window-blinds.

Through the pa.s.sage-way, as he opened the door, came wafted from a back garden the clean odour of flowering stocks.

In the parlour to the right of the pa.s.sage, a frail, small woman rose from her chair to welcome them.

"Mother," said her son, "this is Lady Vyell."

The little woman stretched out her hands, and then, before Ruth could take them, they were lifted and touched her temples softly, and she bent to their benediction.

"My son has often talked of you. May the Lord bless you my dear.

May the Lord bless you both. May the Lord cause His face to shine upon you all your days!"