Miss Billy's Decision Part 32

"Lucky Mary Jane!" murmured Bertram, still with a lightness that he hoped would pa.s.s for indifference. (Bertram was ashamed of himself, but deep within him was a growing consciousness that he knew the meaning of the vague irritation that he always felt at the mere mention of Arkwright's name.) "And will the t.i.tle-page say, 'Words by Mary Jane Arkwright'?" he finished.

"That's what I asked him," laughed Billy.

"I even suggested 'Methuselah John' for a change. Oh, but, dearie," she broke off with shy eagerness, "I just want you to hear a little of what I've done with it. You see, really, all the time, I suspect, I've been singing it--to you," she confessed with an endearing blush, as she sprang lightly to her feet and hurried to the piano.

It was a bad ten minutes that Bertram Henshaw spent then. How he could love a song and hate it at the same time he did not understand; but he knew that he was doing exactly that. To hear Billy carol "Sweetheart, my sweetheart!" with that joyous tenderness was bliss unspeakable--until he remembered that Arkwright wrote the "Sweetheart, my sweetheart!" then it was--(Even in his thoughts Bertram bit the word off short. He was not a swearing man.) When he looked at Billy now at the piano, and thought of her singing--as she said she had sung--that song to him all through the last three days, his heart glowed. But when he looked at her and thought of Arkwright, who had made possible that singing, his heart froze with terror.

From the very first it had been music that Bertram had feared. He could not forget that Billy herself had once told him that never would she love any man better than she loved her music; that she was not going to marry. All this had been at the first--the very first. He had boldly scorned the idea then, and had said:

"So it's music--a cold, senseless thing of spidery marks on clean white paper--that is my only rival!"

He had said, too, that he was going to win. And he had won--but not until after long weeks of fearing, hoping, striving, and despairing--this last when Kate's blundering had nearly made her William's wife. Then, on that memorable day in September, Billy had walked straight into his arms; and he knew that he had, indeed, won.

That is, he had supposed that he knew--until Arkwright came.

Very sharply now, as he listened to Billy's singing, Bertram told himself to be reasonable, to be sensible; that Billy did, indeed, love him. Was she not, according to her own dear a.s.sertion, singing that song to him? But it was Arkwright's song. He remembered that, too--and grew faint at the thought. True, he had won when his rival, music, had been a "cold, senseless thing of spidery marks" on paper; but would that winning stand when "music" had become a thing of flesh and blood--a man of undeniable charm, good looks, and winsomeness; a man whose thoughts, aims, and words were the personification of the thing Billy, in the long ago, had declared she loved best of all--music?

Bertram shivered as with a sudden chill; then Billy rose from the piano.

"There!" she breathed, her face shyly radiant with the glory of the song. "Did you--like it?"

Bertram did his best; but, in his state of mind, the very radiance of her face was only an added torture, and his tongue stumbled over the words of praise and appreciation that he tried to say. He saw, then, the happy light in Billy's eyes change to troubled questioning and grieved disappointment; and he hated himself for a jealous brute. More earnestly than ever, now, he tried to force the ring of sincerity into his voice; but he knew that he had miserably failed when he heard her falter:

"Of course, dear, I--I haven't got it nearly perfected yet. It'll be much better, later."

"But it s{sic} fine, now, sweetheart--indeed it is," protested Bertram, hurriedly.

"Well, of course I'm glad--if you like it," murmured Billy; but the glow did not come back to her face.

CHAPTER XVIII. SUGARPLUMS

Those short December days after Bertram's return from New York were busy ones for everybody. Miss Winthrop was not in town to give sittings for her portrait, it is true; but her absence only afforded Bertram time and opportunity to attend to other work that had been more or less delayed and neglected. He was often at Hillside, however, and the lovers managed to s.n.a.t.c.h many an hour of quiet happiness from the rush and confusion of the Christmas preparations.

Bertram was a.s.suring himself now that his jealous fears of Arkwright were groundless. Billy seldom mentioned the man, and, as the days pa.s.sed, she spoke only once of his being at the house. The song, too, she said little of; and Bertram--though he was ashamed to own it to himself--breathed more freely.

The real facts of the case were that Billy had told Arkwright that she should have no time to give attention to the song until after Christmas; and her manner had so plainly shown him that she considered himself synonymous with the song, that he had reluctantly taken the hint and kept away.

"I'll make her care for me sometime--for something besides a song," he told himself with fierce consolation--but Billy did not know this.

Aside from Bertram, Christmas filled all of Billy's thoughts these days.

There were such a lot of things she wished to do.

"But, after all, they're only sugarplums, you know, that I'm giving, dear," she declared to Bertram one day, when he had remonstrated with with her for so taxing her time and strength. "I can't really do much."

"Much!" scoffed Bertram.

"But it isn't much, honestly--compared to what there is to do," argued Billy. "You see, dear, it's just this," she went on, her bright face sobering a little. "There are such a lot of people in the world who aren't really poor. That is, they have bread, and probably meat, to eat, and enough clothes to keep them warm. But when you've said that, you've said it all. Books, music, fun, and frosting on their cake they know nothing about--except to long for them."

"But there are the churches and the charities, and all those long-named Societies--I thought that was what they were for," declared Bertram, still a little aggrievedly, his worried eyes on Billy's tired face.

"Oh, but the churches and charities don't frost cakes nor give sugarplums," smiled Billy. "And it's right that they shouldn't, too,"

she added quickly. "They have more than they can do now with the roast beef and coal and flannel petticoats that are really necessary."

"And so it's just frosting and sugarplums, is it--these books and magazines and concert tickets and lace collars for the crippled boy, the spinster lady, the little widow, and all the rest of those people who were here last summer?"

Billy turned in confused surprise.

"Why, Bertram, however in the world did you find out about all--that?"

"I didn't. I just guessed it--and it seems 'the boy guessed right the very first time,'" laughed Bertram, teasingly, but with a tender light in his eyes. "Oh, and I suppose you'll be sending a frosted cake to the Lowestoft lady, too, eh?"

Billy's chin rose to a defiant stubbornness.

"I'm going to try to--if I can find out what kind of frosting she likes."

"How about the Alice lady--or perhaps I should say, the Lady Alice?"

smiled the man.

Billy relaxed visibly.

"Yes, I know," she sighed. "There is--the Lady Alice. But, anyhow, she can't call a Christmas present 'charity'--not if it's only a little bit of frosting!" Billy's chin came up again.

"And you're going to, really, dare to send her something?"

"Yes," avowed Billy. "I'm going down there one of these days, in the morning--"

"You're going down there! Billy--not alone?"

"Yes. Why not?"

"But, dearie, you mustn't. It was a horrid place, Will says."

"So it was horrid--to live in. It was everything that was cheap and mean and forlorn. But it was quiet and respectable. 'Tisn't as if I didn't know the way, Bertram; and I'm sure that where that poor crippled woman and daughter are safe, I shall be. Mrs. Greggory is a lady, Bertram, well-born and well-bred, I'm sure--and that's the pity of it, to have to live in a place like that! They have seen better days, I know. Those pitiful little worn crutches of hers were mahogany, I'm sure, Bertram, and they were silver mounted."

Bertram made a restless movement.

"I know, dear; but if you had some one with you! It wouldn't do for Will, of course, nor me--under the circ.u.mstances. But there's Aunt Hannah--" He paused hopefully.

Billy chuckled.

"Bless your dear heart! Aunt Hannah would call for a dozen shawls in that place--if she had breath enough to call for any after she got to the top of those four flights!"

"Yes, I suppose so," rejoined Bertram, with an unwilling smile.

"Still--well, you _can_ take Rosa," he concluded decisively.