The Girl at Cobhurst Part 19

Ralph was quite sure that Dora's deductions were correct, for when Miriam happened to drop asleep in a chair in the evening, it was her habit, when aroused, to get up and go to bed, too sleepy to think about anything else; but he did not think it was funny now. He was mortified that Miss Bannister should have been treated with such apparent disrespect, and he began to apologize for his sister.

"Now, please stop, Mr. Haverley," interrupted Dora. "I am so glad to have her act so freely and unconventionally with me, as if we had always been friends. It makes me feel almost as if we had known each other always, and it does not make the slightest difference to me. Miriam wanted to give me another room, but I implored her to let me sleep with her in that splendid high-posted bedstead, and so all that I have to do is to slip up to her room, and, if I can possibly help it, I shall not waken her. In the morning I do not believe she will remember a thing about having gone to bed without me. So good-night, Mr. Haverley. I am going to be up very early, and you shall see what a breakfast the new cook will give you. I will light this candle, for no doubt poor Miriam has put out her lamp, if she did not depend entirely on the moonlight. By the way, Mr. Haverley,"

she said, turning toward him, "is there anything I can do to help you in shutting up the house? You know I am maid of all work as well as cook.

Perhaps I should go down and see if the kitchen fire is safe."

"Oh, no, no!" exclaimed Ralph; "I attend to all those things,--at least, when we have no servant."

"But doesn't Miriam help you?" asked Dora, taking up the candle which she had lighted.

"No," said he; "Miriam generally bids me good-night and goes upstairs an hour before I do."

"Very well," said Dora; "I will say only one more thing, and that is that if I were the lord of the manor, who had been working in the hay-field all day, I would not sit up very long, waiting for a wandering doctor."

Ralph laughed, and as she approached the door of the stairway, he opened it for her.

"Suppose," she said, stopping for a moment in the doorway, and shielding the flame of the candle from a current of air with a little hand that was so beautifully lighted that for a moment it attracted Ralph's eyes from its owner's face, "you wait here for a minute, and I will go up and see if she is really safe in her own room. I am sure you will be better satisfied if you know that."

Ralph looked his thanks, and softly, but quickly, she went up the stairs.

At a little landing she stopped.

"Do you know," she whispered, looking back, with the candle throwing her head and hair into the prettiest lights and shadows, "I think this stairway is lovely;" and then she went on and disappeared.

In a few minutes she leaned over the upper part of the banisters and softly spoke to him.

"She is sleeping as sweetly and as quietly as the dearest of angels. I do not believe I shall disturb her in the least. Good-night, Mr. Haverley."

And with her face thrown into a new light,--this time by the hall lamp below,--she smiled ever so sweetly, and then drew back her head. In half a minute it reappeared. She was right; he was still looking up.

"I forgot to say," she whispered, "that all the windows in Miriam's room are open. Do you think she was too sleepy to notice that, or is she accustomed to so much night air?"

"I really do not know," said Ralph, in reply.

"Very well, then," said Dora; "I will attend to all that in my own way.

Good-night again, Mr. Haverley;" and with a little nod and a smile, she withdrew her face from his view.

If she had come back within the next minute, she would have found him still looking up. She felt quite sure of this, but she could think of no good reason for another reappearance.

Ralph lighted a pipe and sat down on the piazza. He looked steadily in front of him, but he saw no gra.s.s, no trees, no moonlighted landscape, no sky of summer night. He saw only the face of a young girl, leaning over and looking down at him from the top of a stairway. It was the face of a girl who was so gentle, so thoughtful for others, so quick to perceive, so quick to do; who was so fond of his sister, and so beautiful. He sat and thought of the wondrous good fortune that had brought this girl beneath his roof, and had given him these charming hours with her.

And when his pipe was out, he arose, declared to himself that, no matter what the doctor might think of it, he would not wait another minute for him, and went to bed,--his mind very busy with the antic.i.p.ation of the charming hours which were to come on the morrow.

CHAPTER XV

MISS PANNEY IS AROUSED TO HELP AND HINDER

When Dr. Tolbridge returned from the visit to the patient who lived beyond Cobhurst, he did not drive into the latter place, for seeing Mike by the gate near the barn, he gave the cushions and whip to him and went on.

As it was yet early in the evening, and bright moonlight, he concluded to go around by the Wittons'. It was not far out of his way, and he wanted to see Miss Panney. What he wanted to say to the old lady was not exactly evident to his own mind, but in a general way he wished her to know that Dora was at Cobhurst.

Dora was a great favorite with the doctor. He had known her all her life, and considered that he knew, not only her good points, of which there were many, but also those that were not altogether desirable, and, of which, he believed, there were few. One of the latter was her disposition to sometimes do as she pleased, without reference to tradition or ordinary custom. He had seen her acting the part of cook, disguised by a pink sunbonnet and an old-fashioned calico gown. And what pranks she and the Haverleys--two estimable young people, but also lively and independent--might play, no one could tell. The duration of Dora's visit would depend on her brother Herbert, and he was a man of business, whose time was not at all at his own disposal, and so, the doctor thought, it would not be a bad thing if Miss Panney would call at Cobhurst the next day, and see what those three youngsters were about.

The Wittons had gone to bed, but Miss Panney was in the parlor, reading.

"Early to bed and early to rise," was not one of her rules.

"Well, really!" she exclaimed, as she rose to greet her visitor, "this is amazing. How many years has it been since you came to see me without being sent for?"

"I do not keep account of years," said the doctor, "and if I choose to stop in and have a chat with you, I shall do it without reference to precedent. This is a purely social call, and I shall not even ask you how you are."

"I beg you will not," said the old lady, "and that will give me a good reason for sending for you when you ought to be informed on that point."

"This is not my first social call this evening," said he. "I took supper at Cobhurst, where Dora Bannister waited on the table."

"What do you mean?" exclaimed Miss Panney, and then the doctor told his tale. As the old lady listened, her spirits rose higher and higher. What extraordinary good luck! She had never planned a match that moved with such smoothness, such celerity, such astonishing directness as this. She did not look upon Dora's disregard of tradition and ordinary custom as an undesirable point in her character. She liked that sort of thing. It was one of the points in her own character.

"I wish I could have seen her!" she exclaimed. "She must have been charming."

"Don't you think there is danger that she may be too charming?" the doctor asked.

"No, I don't," promptly answered Miss Panney.

The doctor looked at her in some surprise.

"We should remember," said he, "that Dora is a girl of wealth; that one-third of the Bannister estate belongs to her, besides the sixty thousand dollars that came to her from her mother."

"That does not hurt her," said Miss Panney.

"And Ralph Haverley was a poor young man when he came here, and Cobhurst will probably make him a good deal poorer."

"I do not doubt it," said Miss Panney.

"Do you believe," said the doctor, after a moment's pause, "that it is wise or right in a girl like Dora Bannister, accustomed to fine living, good society, and an atmosphere of opulence, to allow a poor man like Ralph Haverley to fall in love with her? And he will do it, just as sure as the world turns round."

"Well, let him do it," replied the old lady. "I did not intend to give my opinion on this subject, because, as you know, I am not fond of obtruding my ideas into other people's affairs, but I will say, now, that Dora Bannister will have to travel a long distance before she finds a better man for a husband than Ralph Haverley, or a better estate on which to spend her money than Cobhurst. I believe that money that is made in a neighborhood like this ought to be spent here, and Thomas Bannister's money could not be better spent than in making Cobhurst the fine estate it used to be. I do not believe in a girl like Dora going off and marrying some city fellow, and perhaps spending the rest of her life at the watering-places and Paris. I want her here; don't you?"

"I certainly do, but you forget Mr. Ames."

"I do, and I intend to forget him," she replied, "and so does Dora."

The doctor shook his head. "I do not like it," he said; "young Haverley may be all very well,--I have a high opinion of him, already, but he is not the man for Dora. If he had any money at all, it would be different, but he has not. Now she would not be content to live at Cobhurst as it is, and he ought not to be content to have her do everything to make it what she would have it."

"Doctor," said Miss Panney, "if there is anything about all this in your medicine books, perhaps you know more than I do, and you can go on and talk; but you know there is not, and you know, too, that I was a very sensible middle-aged woman when you were toddling around in frocks and running against people. I believe you are trying to run against somebody now. Who is it?"

"Well," said the doctor, "if it is anybody, it is young Haverley."

Miss Panney smiled. "You may think so," she said, "but I want you to know that you are also running against me, and I say to you, confidentially, and with as much trust in you as I used to have that you would not tell who it was who spread your bread with forbidden jam, that I have planned a match between these two; and if they marry, I intend to make pecuniary matters more nearly even between them, than they are now."