Paddy The Next Best Thing Part 62

"Why, I believe you're quite sorry about this stupid smash!" with a little callous laugh; "sorry in spite of yourself, eh, Paddy?" She did not answer, feeling vaguely hurt, and he ran on: "You're allowed to pity me, then, and to come and see me out of charity as the poor invalid!

Well, I don't know that there's anything in the world I hate more than charity, but I seem to be with the beggars every time now, and called upon to be thankful for anything I can get."

"You know it is not charity," she blurted out. "It is unkind of you to say so. I hate to see you lying there, looking so ill. I--I--" She stopped short suddenly--pitfalls lay ahead that might engulf her.

"Let it be charity if it brings you nearer. I can't afford pride any longer. Charity should bring you close beside my couch of suffering, laying your hand on my fevered brow, and all that stuff. You are not a very good district visitor, Paddy." There was a taunt in his voice, and he saw that he was hurting her more and more, and because in some way it gave him pleasure, he drove the barbs in. "Don't look so resentful. Do you feel you've been trapped here under false pretences? Did Gwen tell you I was dying or something? How wicked of her! And now you find I've only a smashed-up arm, and all that beautiful Christian spirit of pity is like to be wasted on an unworthy object. Well, the arm hurts pretty badly, if that is any help to you. They give me morphia now and then, but I wouldn't have it to-day."

But that was a little too much, and a flash of the old Paddy came back.

"You have no right to speak to me like this," she declared hotly; "it is ungenerous of you. I have done nothing to deserve it. Gwen told me that you were hurt, and that you wanted me; that was all."

"And haven't I wanted you for weeks and months!... Yet you only ran away. Paddy, why did you run away from Omeath! It wasn't quite fair.

You made me behave like a brute; and to mother. I'm expiating it in my mind every hour, but, thank heaven, a mother like mine always understands. I wrote afterward and told her how it happened. I'd have gone across if I hadn't had this smash." His voice changed suddenly, as with a quick, keen expression he leaned toward her and asked: "Paddy, why did you run away?... Why do you treat me like this, _when you love me_?"

Again the tell-tale colour flooded her face, and she could not meet his eyes; but pulling herself together quickly, she answered in a voice that had borrowed some of the taunt from his: "I thought you said it was just charity."

He smiled as if the taunt pleased him. "It is certainly about the same temperature just now. But there, I won't tease you any more. You were a dear thing to come. I'll get you a cozy, inviting chair if I can, then perhaps you'll stay." He attempted to rise, but the effort brought on a sharp spasm that turned him faint, and Paddy sprang forward.

"Oh, you mustn't move, you mustn't move," she cried. "Why did you try to?... Can I get you anything...!"

His rigid lips broke into the ghost of a smile, and a great tenderness came into his eyes. "Sit where I can see you, mavourneen; it is all the healing I need."

Paddy pulled up a footstool, and sat beside him, and quietly began to run her fingers with a light touch up and down his uninjured arm. She had seen his mother do it, and knew he found it soothing. Thus for some time neither spoke, and gradually the drawn, blue look left his face.

At last, from gazing into the fire, she looked up suddenly into his face, and found he was watching her intently.

"Mavourneen," he said very quietly, "I suspected that you were beginning to care at Christmas. I know it now. What are you going to do about it?"

She hid her face against his hand, and did not reply.

"What is your own idea, anyway?" he asked, in a winsome, humorous voice.

"Oh, if you could only run away with me by force," she murmured intensely. "If only I needn't decide at all. I'm just a lump of obstinacy, and I don't want to climb down and meekly give in; don't you see how I hate that part of it? You could always say 'I told you so,'"

and she smiled a little.

"Bravo, Patricia! I like that spirit in you. Curse it all, a few hundred years ago, I'd just have brought along my men-at-arms and captured you. What good old days they must have been. And here we are hemmed in all round by barriers, and I haven't even got a couple of good arms to drag you onto my horse. But anyhow, the G.o.ds are evidently relenting, so I'll take heart and think out a plan." He saw her glance at the clock.

"Must you go now? Are the beastly medicine bottles squirming on the shelf? Well, I won't keep you. It isn't good enough with a crocked-up arm. In fact, it isn't good at all; it's merely maddening. You see, I want to kiss you, Paddy, and I dare say if I asked very appealingly and pathetically, you would lean over and give me a sort of benevolent, motherly salute." He gave a low laugh with a note of masterfulness in it. "But I'll have none of it. To dream as I have dreamed, and then begin with a mild caress! _Never_. I forbid you to come near me again until I'm on my feet with, at any rate, one strong arm. Then I'll show you. I had always a weakness for the best."

She stood up, a little non-plussed and uncertain, but he only smiled into her eyes with something of the old mocking light.

"Good-by, mavourneen, I'll let you know when you must come again. I've had enough healing for a little--and I'm sure the bottles are clamouring."

"Good-by," she answered, and went slowly out of the room.

But as she trundled back to Shepherd's Bush on a motor 'bus, she saw no greyness and shabbiness and desolation any more--saw nothing at all-- only knew that in her heart there was a sort of shy, fierce, bewildering gladness.

CHAPTER FORTY SIX.

THE SOLUTION.

A week pa.s.sed, and no message of any sort reached Paddy, so that, finally, in desperation she rang up Gwen on the telephone to ask for news. Gwen's voice sounded a little cold and constrained, and Paddy learned nothing beyond the fact that Lawrence was progressing very well.

Gwen said that she would tell him Paddy had inquired, but he was sleeping now.

Paddy hung up the receiver, feeling as if a weight had come down upon her. What did it mean? Evidently he had no message for her, and Gwen no longer dreamt of coming to fetch her. She went out for a walk, and found herself in a 'bus going toward Gwen's home. She walked down Grosvenor Place, and saw Gwen come out, looking very gay and lovely with her giant, and the two of them sped away together in a motor. So Lawrence was alone. Yet she could not go to him. The situation seemed impossible, almost absurd. Surely he had not suddenly ceased to want her! Yet not for the world would she cross the road and present herself unasked. So there was nothing for it but to go back to the bottles and prescriptions, and to the making of that endless trousseau for Eileen.

They--Eileen and her mother--had heard about Lawrence's accident at last, and told her of it as a piece of news. It seemed Mrs Blake had come over, and was established at Gwen's home with him. So, of course, he did not particularly want her now. When the pain was bad, his mother would soothe him with that running touch; and when he felt better, Gwen was there to make him laugh. She told herself she did not mind. That fortunately she had known him too well to let herself go in any real sense. He was just fickle as ever, that was all.

Nevertheless, a yet duller ache began to be her portion. An ache that was akin to sheer misery. The future began to frighten her a little.

Was it possible the making up of medicines was to be her portion indefinitely? Perhaps for many more of the glad, joyous, youthful years now speeding by. One day a letter came from Ted Masterman, and when Paddy had read it, she stood long and silently gazing at the blank, uninteresting windows opposite. He was prospering now, and seemed full of content with his surroundings. Too full of content. In her present mood Paddy resented it. She resented it a little because she knew he possessed those traits which make for happiness which Lawrence lacked.

If there had been no Lawrence, she might have grown to care for Ted. As it was, she could not care for either. At least, so she told herself, waiting day after day for the message which did not come. Sometimes she told herself she had disappointed him in some way, and he had decided to withdraw while he could. Another time, she remembered what he had said about the kiss, and her cheeks burned, and her eyes fell. Was it possible he was really waiting until he could stand with ease, and was himself again! And if so...

She wondered a little whether she would have the courage to go, supposing the message came in the end. Something in her seemed to have lost confidence. She was the same--yet different. She wanted again to run away, only now she also wanted still more to stay. She read Ted Masterman's letter again, and told herself he was a man to make any woman happy, and that if she said the word, he would come back at once, whereas Lawrence...

The uncertainty made her moody and restless, and her mother and Eileen looked at her a little perplexedly. Eileen asked her about the letter from Ted, but she only said he was prosperous and happy. "Is he coming home?" Eileen suggested, and she answered: "Not that I know of," in a way that had a final ring. Mrs Blake called one day, and told them Lawrence had made a remarkable recovery, and she was returning to Ireland at once. "Of course his arm will be practically useless for some time," she said, "but it will not have to come off. So fortunate it was his left, and not his right. I want him to come back with me, but he won't just at present. He insists he has some business to attend to in town." She laughed a little. She seemed wonderfully happy about him. Evidently, as ever, the very memory of that black afternoon had been wiped out by his later charm. Paddy thought about it lingeringly.

How strong he was when he chose. How he compelled love and forgiveness if it pleased him to do so. Was it possible, she asked again, that he only wanted to break her will, and bend her as he bent all others?

The ache grew, and with it a manufactured anger against him. Surely he might have spared her. What did it profit him to make other men seem tame and colourless in her life?

It was March before the message came. Eileen's trousseau was finished and wedding day fixed, and Paddy had a growing dread of what lay ahead.

Of course she was to be chief bridesmaid, and all the countryside would be there--and among them, Lawrence.

How was she to meet him on that day, after the manner of their parting?

See perhaps the mocking light in his eyes, and hear his veiled taunts.

But the message dropped like a shaft from the skies, suddenly, unpreparedly, and for the moment dispelled all else. It came in a note from Gwen. "Lawrence is taking motor drives every day now, but hates going alone. He wants you to go to-morrow morning, as I have many engagements. He will call for you at the surgery at half-past eleven.

Do be a dear about it. I know you will--and have arranged accordingly."

There was not much sleep for Paddy that night--mostly a troubled, tossing restlessness, and in the morning she looked eagerly at the weather. It was a lovely early spring day, when the little birds were chirping l.u.s.tily, and the little buds swelling to bursting point.

And something about Lawrence seemed to match them, when at last he came.

A veiled light in his eyes, as of some hidden joy swelling to bursting point. A light gaiety of manner. He walked into the dispensary, and laughed at the bottles, telling her it was the untidiest dispensary in London, and he was quite sure all her prescriptions included an appalling supply of microbes. She tried to laugh lightly back, but she could not meet his eyes. Something in his manner--something quite new-- unnerved her. He seemed perfectly well again, except for the slung arm, and when she inquired after that, he only said: "Oh, it will soon be equal to its work, and, anyhow, the other is strong enough now for two."

And then he looked into her eyes and laughed a humorous, teasing, tender little laugh, adding: "Come along. I've an appointment I mustn't miss."

She was conscious of a sudden dampening. Then he was going to see some one else. Her company was not sufficient in itself. He said something to the chauffeur, and they sped away, out through Acton and Ealing into the country, and made a wide circuit, and came back to Richmond.

At half-past twelve they drew up before a quaint old-fashioned church, and the chauffeur got out to open the door.

"Is your appointment at a church?" Paddy asked, looking amused. "I hope you won't be long, because we lunch at one."

"Come in with me," he said; "I want to show you a curious old chained Bible here. One of the oldest known."

She alighted, still looking amused, and followed him through the big old door.

On the threshold he was greeted by the s.e.xton with the astonishing words: "Mr Elkins has just come, sir. He is in the vestry;" and almost at the same moment a clergyman appeared in the chancel.

Lawrence turned and looked into Paddy's eyes--and immediately she understood.

For a breathless moment neither spoke, and she seemed to sway a little with the suddenness of it. The s.e.xton moved away and they stood together alone, but Paddy, was still speechless. Then Lawrence's hand closed firmly over hers with a clasp that seemed to claim her for all eternity. "It was the best way I could think of, mavourneen," he said; then he added humorously: "but it took me all my time to get the special licence necessary."

She tried to speak, but no words would frame themselves, and her lips twisted queerly.

"Mavourneen, are you ready?... The one strong arm is growing impatient." It was the old voice of ineffable tenderness, and it swept her unresistingly into his keeping.