Love Me Little, Love Me Long Part 80

While she gazes at it with dilating eye and throbbing heart, I may as well undeceive the reader. This was not really effected in forty-eight hours. Bazalgette only pretended that, partly out of fun, partly out of n.o.bility. Ever since a certain interview in his study with David Dodd, who was a man after his own heart, he had taken a note, and had worked for him with "the Company;" for Bazalgette was one of those rare men who reduce performance to a certainty long before they promise. His promises were like pie-crust made to be eaten, and eaten hot.

Lucy came out of her room, and at the same moment issued forth from hers Mrs. Bazalgette in a fine new dress. It was that black _glace;_ silk, divested of gloom by cheerful accessories, in which she had threatened to mourn eternally Lucy's watery fate. Fire flashed from the young lady's eyes at the sight of it. She went down to her uncle, muttering between her ivory teeth: "All the same--all the same;" and her heart flowed. The next minute, at sight of Mr.

Bazalgette it ebbed. She came into his room, saying: "Oh, Uncle Bazalgette, it is not to thank you--that I can never do worthily; it is to ask another favor. Do, pray, let me spend this evening with you; let me be where you are. I will be as still as a mouse. See, I have brought some work; or, if you _would_ but let me help you.

Indeed, uncle, I am not a fool. I am very quick to learn at the bidding of those I love. Let me write your letters for you, or fold them up, or direct them, or something--do, pray!"

"Oh, the caprices of young ladies! Well, can you write large and plain? Not you."

"I can _imitate_ anything or anybody."

"Imitate this hand then. I'll walk and dictate, you sit and write."

"Oh, how nice!"

"Delicious! The first is to--Hetherington. Now, Lucy, this is a dishonest, ungrateful old rogue, who has made thousands by me, and now wants to let me into a mine, with nothing in it but water. It would suck up twenty thousand pounds as easily as that blotting-paper will suck up our signature."

"Heartless traitor! monster!" cried Lucy.

"Are you ready?"

"Yes," and her eye flashed and the pen was to her a stiletto.

Bazalgette dictated, "My dear Sir--"

"What? to a cheat?"

"Custom, child. I'll have a stamp made. Besides, if we let them see we see through them, they would play closer and closer--"

"My dear Sir--In answer to yours of date 11th instant, I regret to say--that circ.u.mstances prevent--my closing--with your obliging--and friendly offer."

They wrote eight letters; and Lucy's quick fingers folded up prospectuses, and her rays brightened the room. When the work was done, she clung round Mr. Bazalgette and caressed him, and seemed strangely unwilling to part with him at all; in fact, it was twelve o'clock, and the drawing-room empty, when they parted.

At one o'clock the whole house was dark except one room, and both windows of that room blazed with light. And it happened there was a spectator of this phenomenon. A man stood upon the gra.s.s and eyed those lights as if they were the stars of his destiny.

It was David Dodd. Poor David! he had struck a bargain, and was to command a coasting vessel, and carry wood from the Thames to our southern ports. An irresistible impulse brought him to look, before he sailed, on the place that held the angel who had destroyed his prospects, and whom he loved as much as ever, though he was too proud to court a second refusal.

"She watches, too," thought David, "but it is not for me, as I for her."

At half past one the lights began to dance before his wearied eyes, and presently David, weakened by his late fever, dozed off and forgot all his troubles, and slept as sweetly on the gra.s.s as he had often slept on the hard deck, with his head upon a gun.

Luck was against the poor fellow. He had not been unconscious much more than ten minutes when Lucy's window opened and she looked out; and he never saw her. Nor did she see him; for, though the moon was bright, it was not shining on him; he lay within the shadow of a tree.

But Lucy did see something--a light upon the turnpike road about forty yards from Mr. Bazalgette's gates. She slipped cautiously down, a band-box in her hand, and, unbolting the door that opened on the garden, issued out, pa.s.sed within a few yards of Dodd, and went round to the front, and finally reached the turnpike road. There she found Mrs. Wilson, with a light-covered cart and horse, and a lantern. At sight of her Mrs. Wilson put out the light, and they embraced; then they spoke in whispers.

"Come, darling, don't tremble; have you got much more?"

"Oh, yes, several things."

"Look at that, now! But, dear heart, I was the same at your age, and should be now, like enough. Fetch them all, as quick as you like. I am feared to leave Blackbird, or I'd help you down with 'em."

"Is there n.o.body with you to take care of us?"

"What do you mean--men folk? Not if I know it."

"You are right. You are wise. Oh, how courageous!" And she went back for her finery. And certain it is she had more baggage than I should choose for a forced march.

But all has an end--even a female luggage train; so at last she put out all her lights and came down, stepping like a fairy, with a large basket in her hand.

Now it happened that by this time the moon's position was changed, and only a part of David lay in the shade; his head and shoulders glittered in broad moonlight; and Lucy, taking her farewell of a house where she had spent many happy days, cast her eyes all around to bid good-by, and spied a man lying within a few paces, and looking like a corpse in the silver sheen. She dropped her basket; her knees knocked together with fear, and she flew toward Mrs. Wilson. But she did not go far, for the features, indistinct as they were by distance and pale light, struck her mind, and she stopped and looked timidly over her shoulder. The figure never moved. Then, with beating heart, she went toward him slowly and so stealthily that she would have pa.s.sed a mouse without disturbing it, and presently she stood by him and looked down on him as he lay.

And as she looked at him lying there, so pale, so uncomplaining, so placid, under her windows, this silent proof of love, and the thought of the raging sea this helpless form had steered her through, and all he had suffered as well as acted for her, made her bosom heave, and stirred all that was woman within her. He loved her still, then, or why was he here? And then the thought that she had done something for him too warmed her heart still more toward him. And there was nothing for her to repel now, for he lay motionless; there was nothing for her to escape--he did not pursue her; nothing to negative--he did not propose anything to her. Her instinct of defense had nothing to lay hold of; so, womanlike, she had a strong impulse to wake him and be kind to him--as kind as she could be without committing herself. But, on the other hand, there was shy, trembling, virgin modesty, and shame that he should detect her making a midnight evasion, and fear of letting him think she loved him.

While she stood thus, with something drawing her on and something drawing her back, and palpitating in every fiber, Mrs. Wilson's voice was heard in low but anxious tones calling her. A feather turned the balanced scale. She must go. Fate had decided for her. She was called.

Then the sprites of mischief tempted her to let David know she _had been_ near him. She longed to put his commission into his pocket; but that was impossible. It was at the very bottom of her box. She took out her tablets, wrote the word "Adieu," tore out half the leaf, and, bending over David, attached the little bit of paper by a pin to the tail of his coat. If he had been ever so much awake he could not have felt her doing it; for her hand touching him, and the white paper settling on his coat, was all done as lights a spot of down on still water from the bending neck of a swan.

"No, dear Mrs. Wilson, we must not go yet. I will hold the horse, and you must go back for me for something."

"I'm agreeable. What is it? Why, what is up? How you do pant!"

"I have made a discovery. There is a gentleman lying asleep there on the wet gra.s.s."

"Lackadaisy! why, you don't say so."

"It is a friend; and he will catch his death."

"Why, of course he will. He will have had a drop too much, Miss Lucy.

I'll wake him, and we will take him along home with us."

"Oh, not for the world, nurse. I would not have him see what I am doing, oh, not for all the world!"

"Where is he?"

"In there, under the great tree."

"Well, you get into the cart, miss, and hold the reins"; and Mrs.

Wilson went into the grounds and soon found David.

She put her hand on his shoulder, and he awoke directly, and looked surprised at Mrs. Wilson.

"Are you better, sir?" said the good woman. "Why, if it isn't the handsome gentleman that was so kind to me! Now do ee go in, sir--do ee go in. You will catch your death o' cold." She made sure he was staying at the house.

David looked up at Lucy's windows. "Yes, I will go home, Mrs. Wilson; there is nothing to stay for now"; and he accompanied her to the cart.

But Mrs. Wilson remembered Lucy's desire not to be seen; so she said very loud, "I'm sure it's very lucky me and _my niece_ happened to be coming home so late, and see you lying there. Well, one good turn deserves another. Come and see me at my farm; you go through the village of Harrowden, and anybody there will tell you where Dame Wilson do live. I _would_ ask you to-night, but--" she hesitated, and Lucy let down her veil.

"No, thank you, not now; my sister will be fretting as it is.

Good-morning"; and his steps were heard retreating as Mrs. Wilson mounted the cart.

"Well, I should have liked to have taken him home and warmed him a bit," said the good woman to Lucy; "it is enough to give him the rheumatics for life. However, he is not the first honest man as has had a drop too much, and taken 's rest without a feather-bed. Alack, miss, why, you are all of a tremble! What ails _you?_ I'm a fool to ask. Ah! well, you'll soon be at home, and naught to vex you. That is right; have a good cry, do. Ay, ay, _'tis_ hard to be forced to leave our nest. But all places are bright where love abides; and there's honest hearts both here and there, and the same sky above us wherever we wander, and the G.o.d of the fatherless above that; and better a peaceful cottage than a palace full of strife." And with many such homely sayings the rustic consoled her nursling on their little journey, not quite in vain.