The History of David Grieve Part 87

They walked back rapidly along Mosley Street and into Market Place.

There she stopped and shyly asked him to leave her. Almost all the Sat.u.r.day-night crowd had disappeared from the streets. It was really late, and she became suddenly conscious that this walk of hers might reasonably be regarded at home as a somewhat bold proceeding.

'I wish you'd let me see you right home,' he said, detaining her hand in his.

'Oh, no, no--I shall catch it enough as it is. Oh, they'll let me in! Will it be next Sunday, Mr. Grieve?'

'No, the Sunday after. Can I do anything for you?'

He came closer to her, seeming to envelope her in his tall, protecting presence. It was impossible for him to ignore her girlish flutter, her evident joy in having seen and talked to him again, in spite of her dread of her father. Nor did he wish to ignore them. They were unexpectedly sweet to him, and he surprised himself.

'Oh no, nothing,--but it's very good of you to say so,' she said impulsively; '_very_. Good night again.'

And instinctively she put out another small hand, which also he took, so holding her prisoner a moment.

'Look here,' he said, 'I'll just slip down that side of the Close and wait till I see you get safe in. Good night; I _am_ glad I saw you!'

She ran away in a blind whirl of happiness up the steps into the pa.s.sage of Half Street. He slipped down to the left and waited, looking through the railings across the corner of the Close, his eyes fixed on that upper window, where he had so often sat, parleying alternately with the cathedral and Voltaire.

Lucy rang, the door opened, there were loud sounds within, but she was admitted; it closed behind her.

David was soon in his back room, kindling a lamp and a bit of fire to read by. But when it was done he sat bent forward over the blaze, till the cathedral clock chimed the small hours, thinking.

She was so unformed and childish, that poor little thing!--surely a man could make what he would of her. She would give him affection and duty; the core of the nature was sound, and her little humours would bring life into a house.

He had but to put out his hand--that was plain enough. And why not?

Was any humbler draught to be for ever put aside, because the best wine had been poured to waste?

Then the rebellions of an unquenched romance, an untamed heart, beset him. Surging waves of bitterness and pain, the after-swell of that tempest in which his youth had so nearly foundered, seemed to bear him away to seas of desolation.

After all that had happened, the greed for personal joy he every now and then detected in himself surprised and angered him by its strength. The truth was that in whole tracts of his nature he was still a boy, still young beyond his years, and it was the conflict in him between youth's hot immaturity and a man's baffling experience which made the pain of his life.

He meant to go to Wakely on the next Sunday but one--that he was certain of--but as to what he was to do and say when he got there he was perhaps culpably uncertain. But in his weakness and _sehnsucht_ he dwelt upon the thought of Lucy more and more.

Then Dora--foolish saint!--came upon the scene.

Lucy found her way to the street in Ancoats where Dora lived, the morning after her talk with David, and the two cousins spent an agitated hour together. Lucy could hardly find time to ask Dora about her sorrows, so occupied was she in recounting all her own adventures. She was to go back to Wakely that very afternoon.

Purcell had been absolutely unapproachable since the cousin who had escorted Lucy to the Free Trade Hall the night before had in her own defence revealed the secret of that young lady's behaviour.

Pack and go she should! He wouldn't have such a hussy another night under his roof. Let them do with her as could.

'I thought he would have beaten me this morning,' Lucy candidly confessed. There was a red spot on each cheek, and she was evidently glorying in martyrdom. 'He looked like a devil--a real devil. Why can't he be fond of me, and let me alone, like other girls' fathers? I believe he _is_ fond of me somehow, but he wants to break my spirit--'

She tossed her head significantly.

'Lucy, you know you ought to give in when you can,' said the perplexed Dora, with rebuke in her voice.

'Oh, nonsense!' said Lucy. 'You can't--it's ridiculous. Well, he'll quarrel with that woman some day--I'm sure _she's_ his match--and then maybe he'll want me back. But perhaps he won't get me.'

Dora looked up with a curious expression, half smiling, half wistful. She had already heard all the story of the walk.

'O Dora!' cried the child, laying down her head on the table beneath her cousin's eyes, 'Dora, I do believe he's beginning to care. You see he _asked_ to come to Wakely. I didn't ask him.

Oh, if it all comes to nothing again, I shall break my heart!'

Dora smoothed the fine brown hair, and said affectionate things, but vaguely, as if she was not quite certain what to say.

'He does look quite different, somehow,' continued Lucy. 'Why do you think he was so long away over there, Dora? Father says nasty things about it--says he fell into bad company and lost his money.'

'I don't know how uncle Purcell can know,' said Dora indignantly.

'He's always thinking the worst of people. He was ill, for Mr.

Ancrum told me, and he's the only person that _does_ know. And anyone can see he isn't strong yet.'

'Oh, and he is so handsome!' sighed Lucy, 'handsomer than ever.

There isn't a man in Manchester to touch him.'

Dora laughed out and called her a 'little silly.' But, as privately in her heart of hearts she was of the same opinion, her reproof had not much force.

When Lucy left, Dora put away her work, and, lifting a flushed face, walked to the window and stood there looking out. A pale April sun was shining on the brewery opposite, and touched the dark waters of the ca.n.a.l under the bridge to the left. The roofs of the squalid houses ab.u.t.ting on the brewery were wet with rain. Through a gap she could see a laundress's back-yard mainly filled with drying clothes, but boasting besides a couple of pink flowering currants just out, and holding their own for a few brief days against the s.m.u.ts of Manchester. Here and there a man out of work lounged, pipe in mouth, at his open door, silently absorbing the sunshine and the cheerfulness of the moist blue over the house-tops. There was a new sweetness and tenderness in the spring air--or were they in Dora's soul?

She leant her head against the window, and remained there with her hands clasped before her for some little time--for her, a most unusual idleness.

Yes, Lucy was very obstinate. Dora had never thought she would have the courage to fight her father in this way. And selfish, too. She had spoken only once of Daddy, and that in a way to make the daughter wince. But she was so young--such a child!--and would be ruined if she were left to this casual life, and people who didn't understand her. A husband to take care of her, and children--they would be the making of her.

And he! Dora's eyes filled with tears. All this winter the change in him, the silent evidences of a shock all the more tragic to her because of its mystery, had given him a kind of sacredness in her eyes. She fell thinking, besides, of the times lately he had been to church with her. Ah, she was glad he had heard that sermon, that beautiful sermon of Canon Welby's in Pa.s.sion Week! He had said nothing about it, but she knew it had been meant for clever, educated men--men like him. The church, indeed, had been full of men--her neighbours had told her that several of the gentlemen from Owens College had been there.

That evening David knocked at the door below about half-past eight.

Dora got up quickly and went across to her room-fellow, a dark-faced stooping girl, who took her shirt-maker's slavery without a murmur, and loved Dora.

'Would you mind, Mary?' she said timidly. 'I want to speak to Mr.

Grieve.'

The girl looked up, understood, stopped her machine, and, hastily gathering some pieces together that wanted b.u.t.tonholes, went off into the little inner room and shut the door.

Dora knelt and with restless hands put the bit of fire together.

She had just thrown a handkerchief over her canaries. On the frame a piece of her work, a fine altar-cloth gleaming with golds, purples, and pale pinks, stood uncovered. The deal table, the white walls on which hung Daddy's old prints, the bare floor with its strip of carpet, were all spotlessly clean. The tea had been put away. Daddy's vacant chair stood in its place.

When David came in he found her sitting pensively on a little wooden stool by the fire. Generally he gossipped while the two girls worked busily away--sometimes he read to them. To-night as he sat down he felt something impending.

Dora talked of Lucy's visit. They agreed as to the folly and brutality of Purcell's treatment of her, and laughed together over the marauding stepmother.

Then there was a pause. Dora broke it. She was sitting upright on the stool, looking straight into his face.

'Will you not be cross if I say something?' she asked, catching her breath. 'It's not my business.'

'Say it, please.' But he reddened instantly.

'Lucy's--Lucy's--got a fancy for you,' she said tremulously, shrinking from her own words. 'Perhaps it's a shame to say it--oh, it may be! You haven't told me anything, and she's given me no leave. But she's had it a long time.'

'I don't know why you say so,' he replied half sombrely.