The Laurel Bush Part 8

Andrews. Hopeless to resist, she could only crouch down and let them pa.s.s. "All Thy waves have gone over me."

Of course this is spoken metaphorically. Outwardly, Miss Williams neither sat still nor folded her hands. She was seen every where as usual, her own proper self, as the world knew it; but underneath all that was the self that she knew, and G.o.d knew. No one else. No one ever could have known, except Robert Roy, had things been different from what they were--from what G.o.d had apparently willed them to be.

A sense of inevitable fate came over her. It was now nearly two years since that letter from Mr. Roy of Shanghai, and no more tidings had reached her. She began to think none ever would reach her now. She ceased to hope or to fear, but let herself drift on, accepting the small pale pleasures of every day, and never omitting one of its duties. One only thought remained; which, contrasted with the darkness of all else, often gleamed out as an actual joy.

If the lost letter really was Robert Roy's--and though she had no positive proof, she had the strongest conviction, remembering the thick fog of that Tuesday morning, how easily Archy might have dropped it out of his hand, and how, during those days of soaking rain, it might have lain, un.o.bserved by any one, under the laurel branches, till the child picked it up and hid it as he said--if Robert Roy lad written to her, written in any way, he was at least not faithless. And he might have loved her then. Afterward, he might have married, or died; she might never find him again in this world, or if she found him, he might be totally changed: still, whatever happened, he had loved her. The fact remained. No power in earth or heaven could alter it.

And sometimes, even yet, a half-superst.i.tious feeling came over her that all this was not for nothing--the impulse which had impelled her to write to Shanghai, the other impulse, or concatenation of circ.u.mstances, which had floated her, after so many changes, back to the old place, the old life. It looked like chance, but was it? Is any thing chance? Does not our own will, soon or late, accomplish for us what we desire? That is, when we try to reconcile it to the will of G.o.d.

She had accepted His will all these years, seeing no reason for it; often feeling it very hard and cruel, but still accepting it. And now?

I am writing no sensational story. In it are no grand dramatic points; no _Deus ex machina_ appears to make all smooth; every event--if it can boast of aught so large as an event--follows the other in perfectly natural succession. For I have always noticed that in life there are rarely any startling "effects," but gradual evolutions. Nothing happens by accident; and, the premises once granted, nothing happens but what was quite sure to happen, following those premises. We novelists do not "make up" our stories; they make themselves. Nor do human beings invent their own lives; they do but use up the materials given to them--some well, some ill; some wisely, some foolishly; but, in the main, the dictum of the Preacher is not far from the truth, "All things come alike to all."

A whole winter had pa.s.sed by, and the spring twilights were beginning to lengthen, tempting Miss Williams and her girls to linger another half hour before they lit the lamp for the evening. They were doing so, cozily chatting over the fire, after the fashion of a purely feminine household, when there was a sudden announcement that a gentleman, with two little boys, wanted to see Miss Williams. He declined to give his name, and said he would not detain her more than a few minutes.

"Let him come in here," Fortune was just about to say, when she reflected that it might be some law business which concerned her girls, whom she had grown so tenderly anxious to save from any trouble and protect from every care. "No, I will go and speak to him myself."

She rose and walked quietly into the parlor, already shadowed into twilight: a neat, compact little person, dressed in soft gray homespun, with a pale pink bow on her throat, and another in her cap--a pretty little fabric of lace and cambric, which, being now the fashion, her girls had at last condescended to let her wear. She had on a black silk ap.r.o.n, with pockets, into one of which she had hastily thrust her work, and her thimble was yet on her finger. This was the figure on which the eyes of the gentleman rested as he turned around.

Miss Williams lifted her eyes inquiringly to his face--a bearded face, thin and dark.

"I beg your pardon, I have not the pleasure of knowing you; I--"

She suddenly stopped. Something in the height, the turn of the head, the crisp dark hair, in which were not more than a few threads of gray, while hers had so many now, reminded her of--someone, the bare thought of whom made her feel dizzy and blind.

"No," he said, "I did not expect you would know me; and indeed, until I saw you, I was not sure you were the right Miss Williams. Possibly you may remember my name--Roy, Robert Roy."

Faces alter, manners, gestures; but the one thing which never changes is a voice. Had Fortune heard this one--ay, at her last dying hour, when all worldly sounds were fading away--she would have recognized it at once.

The room being full of shadow, no one could see any thing distinctly; and it was as well.

In another minute, she had risen, and held out her hand.

"I am very glad to see you, Mr. Roy. How long have you been in England?

Are these your little boys?"

Without answering, he took her hand--a quiet friendly grasp, just as it used to be. And so, without another word, the gulf of fifteen--seventeen years was overleaped, and Robert Roy and Fortune Williams had met once more.

If anybody had told her when she rose that morning what would happen before night, and happen so naturally, too, she would have said it was impossible. That, after a very few minutes, she could have sat there, talking to him as to any ordinary acquaintance, seemed incredible, yet it was truly so.

"I was in great doubts whether the Miss Williams who, they told me, lived here was yourself or some other lady; but I thought I would take the chance. Because, were it yourself, I thought, for the sake of old times, you might be willing to advise me concerning my two little boys, whom I have brought to St. Andrews for their education."

"Your sons, are they?"

"No. I am not married."

There was a pause, and then he told the little fellows to go and look out of the window, while he talked with Miss Williams. He spoke to them in a fatherly tone; there was nothing whatever of the young man left in him now. His voice was sweet, his manner grave, his whole appearance unquestionably "middle-aged."

"They are orphans. Their name is Roy, though they are not my relatives, or so distant that it matters nothing. But their father was a very good friend of mine, which matters a great deal. He died suddenly, and his wife soon after, leaving their affairs in great confusion. Hearing this, far up in the Australian bush, where I have been a sheep-farmer for some years, I came round by Shanghai, but too late to do more than take these younger boys and bring them home. The rest of the family are disposed of. These two will be henceforward mine. That is all."

A very little "all", and wholly about other people; scarcely a word about himself. Yet he seemed to think it sufficient, and as if she had no possible interest in hearing more.

Cursorily he mentioned having received her letter, which was "friendly and kind;" that it had followed him to Australia, and then back to Shanghai. But his return home seemed to have been entirely without reference to it--or to her.

So she let all pa.s.s, and accepted things as they were. It was enough.

When a ship-wrecked man sees land--ever so barren a land, ever so desolate a sh.o.r.e--he does not argue within himself, "Is this my haven?"

he simply puts into it, and lets himself be drifted ash.o.r.e.

It took but a few minutes more to explain further what Mr. Roy wanted--a home for his two "poor little fellows."

"They are so young still--and they have lost their mother. They would do very well in their cla.s.ses here, if some kind woman would take them and look after them. I felt, if the Miss Williams I heard of were really the Miss Williams I used to know, I could trust them to her, more than to any woman I ever knew."

"Thank you." And then she explained that she had already two girls in charge. She could say nothing till she had consulted them. In the mean time--

Just then the bell sounded. The world was going on just as usual--this strange, commonplace, busy, regardless world!

"I beg your pardon for intruding on your time so long," said Mr. Roy, rising. "I will leave you to consider the question, and you will let me know as soon as you can. I am staying at the hotel here, and shall remain until I can leave my boys settled. Good evening."

Again she felt the grasp of the hand: that ghostly touch, so vivid in dreams for these years, and now a warm living reality. It was too much.

She could not bear it.

"If you would care to stay," she said--and though it was too dark to see her, he must have heard the faint tremble in her voice--"our tea is ready. Let me introduce you to my girls, and they can make friends with your little boys."

The matter was soon settled, and the little party ushered into the bright warm parlor, glittering with all the appendages of that pleasant meal--essentially feminine--a "hungry" tea. Robert Roy put his hand over his eyes as if the light dazzled him, and then sat down in the arm-chair which Miss Williams brought forward, turning as he did so to look up at her--right in her face--with his grave, soft, earnest eyes.

"Thank you. How like that was to your old ways! How very little you are changed!"

This was the only reference he made, in the slightest degree, to former times.

And she?

She went out of the room, ostensibly to get a pot of guava jelly for the boys--found it after some search, and then sat down.

Only in her store closet, with her house-keeping things all about her.

But it was a quiet place, and the door was shut.

There is, in one of those infinitely pathetic Old Testament stories, a sentence--"And he sought where to weep: and he entered into his chamber and wept there."

She did not weep, this woman, not a young woman now: she only tried during her few minutes of solitude to gather up her thoughts, to realize what had happened to her, and who it was that sat in the next room--under her roof--at her very fireside. Then she clasped her hands with a sudden sob, wild as any of the emotions of her girlhood.

"Oh, my love, my love, the love of all my life! Thank G.o.d!"

The evening pa.s.sed, not very merrily, but peacefully; the girls, who had heard a good deal of Mr. Roy from David Dalziel, doing their best to be courteous to him, and to amuse his shy little boys. He did not stay long, evidently having a morbid dread of "intruding," and his manner was exceedingly reserved, almost awkward sometimes, of which he seemed painfully conscious, apologizing for being "unaccustomed to civilization and to ladies' society," having during his life in the bush sometimes pa.s.sed months at a time without ever seeing a woman's face.

"And women are your only civilizers," said he. "That is why I wish my motherless lads to be taken into this household of yours, Miss Williams, which looks so--so comfortable," and he glanced round the pretty parlor with something very like a sigh. "I hope you will consider the matter, and let me know as soon as you have made up your mind."

"Which I will do very soon," she answered.

"Yes, I know you will. And your decision once made, you never change."