The Late Mrs. Null Part 29

"Oh, this will do very well indeed," said Lawrence; "and I wish I could come out and help you into your vehicle," regarding the spring wagon which now stood at the door, with Plez at the head of the solemn sorrel.

"Thank you," said Miss Annie, "that is not at all necessary." And she tripped over to the spring wagon, and mounting into its alt.i.tudes without the least trouble in the world, she took up the reins. With these firmly grasped in her little hands, which were stretched very far out, and held very wide apart, she gave the horse a great jerk and told him to "Get up!" As she moved off, Lawrence from his open door called out: "_Bon voyage_" and in a full, clear voice she thanked him, but did not dare to look around, so intent was she upon her charioteering.

Slowly turning the horse toward the yard gate, which Plez stood holding open, her whole soul was absorbed in the act of guiding the equipage through the gateway. Quickly glancing from side to side, and then at the horse's back, which ought to occupy a medium position between the two gateposts, she safely steered the front wheels through the dangerous pa.s.s, although a grin of delight covered the face of Plez as he noticed that the hub of one of the hind wheels almost grazed a post. Then the observant boy ran on to open the other gate, and with many jerks and clucks, Miss Annie induced the sorrel to break into a gentle trot.

As Lawrence looked after her, a little pang made itself noticeable in his conscience. This girl was certainly very kind to him, and most remarkably considerate of him in the plan she had proposed. And yet he felt that he had prevaricated to her, and, in fact, deceived her, in the answer he had made when she asked him if he had sent her cousin to speak for him to Miss March. Would she have such friendly feelings toward him, and be so willing to oblige him, if she knew that he had in effect done the thing which she considered so wrong and so cruel?

But it could not be helped; the time had pa.s.sed for confidences. He must now work out this affair for himself, without regard to persons who really had nothing whatever to do with it.

Closing his door, he hopped back to his table, and, seating himself at it, he opened his travelling inkstand and prepared to write to Miss March. It was absolutely necessary that he should write this letter, immediately, for, after the message he had received from the lady of his love, no time should be lost in putting himself in communication with her. But, before beginning to write, he must decide upon the spirit of his letter.

Under the very peculiar circ.u.mstances of his acceptance, he did not feel that he ought to indulge in those rapturous expressions of ecstacy in which he most certainly would have indulged, if the lady had personally delivered her decision to him. He did not doubt her, for what woman would play a joke like that on a man--upon two men, in fact? Even if there were no other reason she would not dare to do it.

Nor did he doubt Keswick. It would have been impossible for him to come with such a message, if it had not been delivered to him. And yet Lawrence could not bring himself to be rapturous. If he had been accepted in cold blood, and a hand, and not a heart, had been given to him, he would gladly take that hand and trust to himself to so warm the heart that it, also, would soon be his. But he did not know what Roberta March had given him.

On the other hand, he knew very well if, in his first letter as an accepted lover, he should exhibit any of that caution and prudence which, in the course of his courtship, had proved to be shoals on which he had very nearly run aground, that Roberta's resentment, which had shown itself very marked in this regard, would probably be roused to such an extent that the affair would be brought to a very speedy and abrupt termination. If she had been obliged to forgive him, once, for this line of conduct, he could not expect her to do it again. To write a letter, which should err in neither of these respects, was a very difficult thing to do, and required so much preparatory thought, that when, toward the close of the afternoon, Miss Annie drove in at the yard gate, with Mrs Keswick on the seat beside her, not a line had been written.

Mrs Keswick descended from the spring wagon and went into the house, but Miss Annie remained at the bottom of the steps, for the apparent purpose of speaking to Plez; perhaps to give him some instructions in regard to the leading of a horse to its stable, or to instil into his mind some moral principle or other; but the moment the vehicle moved away, she ran over to the office and tapped at the window, which was quickly opened by Lawrence.

"I have spoken to her about it," she said, "and although she blazed up at first, so that I thought I should be burned alive, I made her understand just how matters really are, and she has agreed to let you stay here as a boarder."

"You are extremely good," said Lawrence, "and must be a most admirable manager. This arrangement makes me feel much better satisfied than I could have been, otherwise." Then leaning a little further out of the window, he asked: "But what am I to do for company, while I am shut up here?"

"Oh, you will have Uncle Isham, and Aunt Keswick, and sometimes me.

But I hope that you will soon be able to come into the house, and take your meals, and spend your evenings with us."

"You have nothing but good wishes for me," he said, "and I believe, if you could manage it, you would have me cured by magic, and sent off, well and whole, to-morrow."

"Of course," said Miss Annie, very promptly. "Good night."

Just before supper, Mrs Keswick came in to see Lawrence. She was very grave, almost severe, and her conversation was confined to inquiries as to the state of his ankle, and his general comfort. But Lawrence took no offence at her manner, and was very gracious, saying some exceedingly neat things about the way he had been treated; and, after a little, her manner slightly mollified, and she remarked: "And so you let Miss March go away, without settling anything."

Now Lawrence considered this a very incorrect statement, but he had no wish to set the old lady right. He knew it would joy her heart, and make her more his friend than, ever if he should tell her that Miss March had accepted him, but this would be a very dangerous piece of information to put in her hands. He did not know what use she would make of it, or what damage she might unwittingly do to his prospects.

And so he merely answered: "I had no idea she would leave so soon."

"Well," said the old lady, "I suppose, after all, that you needn't give it up yet. I understand that she is not going to New York before the end of the month, and you may be well enough before that to ride over to Midbranch."

"I hope so, most a.s.suredly," said he.

Lawrence devoted that evening to his letter. It was a long one, and was written with a most earnest desire to embrace all the merits of each of the two kinds of letters, which have before been alluded to, and to avoid all their faults. When it was finished, he read it, tore it up, and threw it in the fire.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The next day opened bright and clear, and before ten o'clock, the thermometer had risen to seventy degrees. Instead of sitting in front of the fireplace, Lawrence had his chair and table brought close to his open doorway, where he could look out on the same beautiful scene which had greeted his eyes a few days before. "But what is the good,"

he thought, "of this green gra.s.s, this sunny air, that blue sky, those white clouds, and the distant tinted foliage, without that figure, which a few days ago stood in the foreground of the picture?" But, as the woman to whom, in his soul's sight, the whole world was but a background, was not there, he turned his eyes from the warm autumnal scene, and prepared again to write to her. He had scarcely taken up his pen, however, when he was interrupted by the arrival of Miss Annie, who came to bring him a book she had just finished reading, a late English novel which she thought might be more interesting than those she had sent him. The book was one which Lawrence had not seen and wanted to see, but in talking about it, to the young lady, he discovered that she had not read all of it.

"Don't let me deprive you of the book," said Lawrence. "If you have begun it, you ought to go on with it."

"Oh, don't trouble your mind about that," she said, with a laugh. "I have finished it, but I have not read a word of the beginning. I only looked at the end of it, to see how the story turned out. I always do that, before I read a novel."

This remark much amused Lawrence. "Do you know," said he, "that I would rather not read novels at all, than to read them in that way. I must begin at the beginning, and go regularly through, as the author wishes his readers to do."

"And perhaps, when you get to the end," said Miss Annie, "you'll find that the wrong man got her, and then you'll wish you had not read the story."

"As you appear to be satisfied with this novel," said Lawrence, "I wish you would read it to me, and then I would feel that I was not taking an uncourteous precedence of you."

"I'll read it to you," said she, "or, at least, as much as you want me to, for I feel quite sure that after you get interested in it, you will want to take it, yourself, and read straight on till it is finished, instead of waiting for some one to come and give you a chapter or two at a time. That would be the way with me, I know."

"I shall be delighted to have you read to me," said Lawrence. "When can you begin?"

"Now," she said, "if you choose. But perhaps you wish to write."

"Not at this moment," said Lawrence, turning from the table.

"Unfortunately I have plenty of leisure. Where will you sit?" And he reached out his hand for a chair.

"Oh, I don't want a chair," said Annie, taking her seat on the broad door-step. "This is exactly what I like. I am devoted to sitting on steps. Don't you think there is something dreadfully stiff about always being perched up in a chair?"

"Yes," said Lawrence, "on some occasions."

And, forthwith, she began upon the first chapter; and having read five lines of this, she went back and read the t.i.tle page, suddenly remembering that Mr Croft liked to begin a book at the very beginning.

Miss Annie had been accustomed to read to her father, and she read aloud very well, and liked it. As she sat there, shaded by a great locust tree, which had dropped so many yellow leaves upon the gra.s.s, that, now and then, it could not help letting a little fleck of sunshine come down upon her, sometimes gilding for a moment her light-brown hair, sometimes touching the end of a crimson ribbon she wore, and again resting for a brief s.p.a.ce on the toe of a very small boot just visible at the edge of her dress, Lawrence looked at her, and said to himself: "Is it possible that this is the rather pale young girl in black, who gave me change from behind the desk of Mr Candy's Information Shop? I don't believe it. That young person sprang up, temporarily, and is defunct. This is some one else."

She read three chapters before she considered it time to go into the house to see if it was necessary for her to do anything about dinner.

When she left him, Lawrence turned again to his writing.

That afternoon, he sent Mrs Null a little note on the back of a card, asking her if she could let him have a few more sheets of paper.

Lawrence found this request necessary, as he had used up that day all the paper she had sent him, and the small torn pieces of it now littered the fireplace.

"He must be writing a diary letter," said Miss Annie to herself when, she received this message, "such as we girls used to write when we were at school." And, bringing down a little the corners of her mouth, she took from her stationery box what she thought would be quite paper enough to send to a man for such a purpose.

But, although the means were thus made abundant, the letter to Miss March was not then written. Lawrence finally determined that it was simply impossible for him to write to the lady, until he knew more.

What Keswick had told him had been absurdly little, and he had hurried away before there had been time to ask further questions. Instead of sending a letter to Miss March, he would write to Keswick, and would put to him a series of interrogations, the answers to which would make him understand better the position in which he stood. Then he would write to Miss March.

The next day Miss Annie could not read to him in the morning, because, as she came and told him, she was going to Howlett's, on an errand for her aunt. But there would be time to give him a chapter or two before dinner, when she came back.

"Would it be any trouble," said Lawrence, "for you to mail a letter for me?"

"Oh, no," said Miss Annie, but not precisely in the same tone in which she would have told him that it would be no trouble to read to him two or three chapters of a novel. And yet she would pa.s.s directly by the residence of Miss Harriet Corvey, the post-mistress.

As Miss Annie walked along the narrow path which ran by the roadside to Howlett's, with the blue sky above her, and the pleasant October sunshine all about her, and followed at a little distance by the boy Plez, carrying a basket, she did not seem to be taking that enjoyment in her walk which was her wont. Her brows were slightly contracted and she looked straight in front of her, without seeing anything in particular, after the manner of persons whose attention is entirely occupied in looking into their own minds, at something they do not like. "It is too much!" she said, almost loud, her brows contracting a little more as she spoke. "It was bad enough to have to furnish the paper, but for me to have to carry the letter, is entirely too much!"

And, at this, she involuntarily glanced at the thick and double stamped missive, which, having no pocket, she carried in her hand. She had not looked at it before, and as her eyes fell upon the address, she stopped so suddenly that Plez, who was dozing as he walked, nearly ran into her. "What!" she exclaimed, "'Junius Keswick, five Q street, Washington, District of Columbia!' Is it possible that Mr Croft has been writing to him, all this time?" She now walked on; and although she still seemed to notice not the material objects around her, the frown disappeared from her brow, and her mental vision seemed to be fixed upon something more pleasant than that which had occupied it before. As it will be remembered, she had refused positively to have anything to do with Lawrence's suit to Miss March, and it was a relief to her to know that the letter she was carrying was not for that lady.

"But why," thought she, "should he be writing, for two whole evenings, to Junius. I expected that he would write to her, to find out why she went off and left him in that way, but I did not suppose he would want to write to Junius. It seems to me they had time enough, that night they were together, to talk over everything they had to say."

And then she began to wonder what they had to say, and, gradually, the conviction grew upon her that Mr Croft was a very, very honorable man.

Of course it was wrong that he should have come here to try to win a lady who, if one looked at it in the proper light, really belonged to another. But it now came into her mind that Mr Croft must, by degrees, have seen this, for himself, and that it was the subject of his long conference with Junius, and also, most probably, of this letter.

The conference certainly ended amicably, and, in that case, it was scarcely possible that Junius had given up his claim. He was not that kind of a man.