The Measure of a Man Part 9

"I was telling John today what I have often told you, how I hated the mill, how sick it made me, and that I must sell my interest in it in order to do something else. Then John made me a proposal, and if you think well of it I will do as John advises. But let us go to the porch, it is so hot here. It feels like the dog days."

"No wonder, with the toggery you have on your back. Whatever in the world led you to make such a guy of yourself? I hope you didn't come through the village."

"I did. I had my horse brought to Oxbar Station, for that very purpose."

"Well, I never! Do you think you look handsome in those things?"

"I do."

"You never made a bigger mistake. I can tell you that. But I want to know what John is up to--sending you away for a whole year--such nonsense!"

Then Harry made John's proposal as attractive as he could, and Mrs.

Hatton listened with a face devoid of all expression, until he said: "I want you with me, mother. I shall have no pleasure without you."

"There is something else you want, Harry. What is it?"

"Well, mother, there is a beautiful girl whom I love with all my heart and soul. I want to take her with me, but I can not--unless you also go."

Mrs. Hatton's face flushed, and she dropped her eyes, knowing that they were full of anger. "Who is this girl?" she asked coldly.

"Lucy Lugur, the schoolmaster's daughter."

"Could you not take her own mother?"

"Lucy has no mother. Her father has been father and mother both to her since she was two years old. He loves her beyond everything."

"I can believe that. I know a little of Ralph Lugur. He has been to see me twice about the children of the village."

"He has them all at his beck and call. And Lucy, mother, she is so fair and sweet! If you could only see her!"

"I have seen her."

"Oh, mother dear, don't speak unkindly of her!"

"Nay; why should I? She is, as you say, very pretty; and I'll warrant she is as good as she is pretty. I could trust Lugur to bring her up properly--but she is not a mate for you."

"I will have no other mate."

"Miss Lugur may be all your fancy paints her, but why should your mother be asked to leave her home, her duties, and pleasures for a year? To subject herself to bad weather and sickness and loneliness and fatigue of all kinds in order that she may throw the mantle of her social respectability over an equivocal situation. I do not blame the girl, but I feel more keenly and bitterly than I can tell you the humiliation and discomfort you would gladly put upon me in order to give yourself the satisfaction of Miss Lugur's company. Harry, you are the most selfish creature I ever met. John has promised to give up your rightful a.s.sistance in the mill, to really do your work for a year, your income is to be paid in full, though you won't earn a farthing of it; you expect the use of the yacht for yourself and a girl out of my knowledge and beneath my social status. Oh, Harry! Harry! It is too much to ask of any mother."

"I never thought of it in this way. Forgive me, mother."

"And who is to take care of John if I go with you? Who is to care for the old home and all the treasures gathered in it? Who will look after the farm and the horses and cattle and poultry, the fruit-trees and lawns and flowers as I do? Do you think that all these cares are pleasures to me? No, my dear lad, but they are my duty. I wouldn't have thy father find out that I neglected even a brooding hen. No, I wouldn't. And the yacht was thy father's great pleasuring. I only went with him to double that pleasure. I don't like the sea, though I never let him know it. Oh, my dear! But there! You haven't learned yet that self-sacrifice is love, and no love without it."

"Mother, I am ashamed of my selfishness. I never realized before how many things you have to care for."

"From c.o.c.klight to the dim, Harry, there is always something needing my care. Must house and farm and John and all our dumb fellow creatures go to the mischief for pretty Lucy Lugur? My dear, I'm saying these things to you, because n.o.body else has a right to say them; but oh, Harry, it breaks my heart to say them!"

"Mother, forgive me. I did not think of anything but the fact that you have always stood by me through thick and thin."

"In all things right, I will stand by you. In whatever is wrong I will be against you. You have fallen into the net of bad company, and you can't mend that trouble--you can only run away from it. Take John's advice, and get out of the reach of that Naylor influence."

"I never saw anything wrong with Frank Naylor. He did not drink, he never touched a card, and he was always respectful to the women we met."

"Harry, you would not dare to repeat to me all that Frank Naylor _said_ to you. Oh, my dear, there it is! When you can shut your _ears_, as easily as your _eyes_, you can afford to be less particular about the company you keep--not until."

At this moment John entered, and the conversation became general and impersonal. But the influence of uncertain and unlooked-for anxiety was over all, and Harry was eager to escape it. He said the young men would be expecting him at their a.s.sociation hall, as he had promised to explain to them the mysteries of golf, which he wished them to favor above cricket.

He had, indeed, a promised obligation on this subject, but the exact time was as yet within his own decision. Yet he was ready to fulfill it that evening, rather than listen to the conversation about himself and his future, which he knew would ensue whether he was present or not. And the promise John had given him of a year's holiday was so satisfactory that he longed to be alone and at liberty to follow it out and fit it into his life.

He felt that John had been generous to him, but he also felt that the proposed manner of rest and recreation was in one respect altogether unsatisfactory--he was to be sent away from Lucy Lugur. He was sure that was John's real and ultimate motive, whatever other motive was virtually put in its place. Mother and brother would agree on that point and he thought of this agreement with a discontent that rapidly became anger.

Then he determined to marry Lucy, and so have a right to her company on land or sea, at home or abroad.

For he argued only from his own pa.s.sionate desire. Lucy had never said she loved him, yet he felt sure she did so. He loved her the moment they met, and he had no doubt Lucy had been affected in the same manner as himself. He knew her for his own, lost out of his soul-life long ago and suddenly found one afternoon as she stood with her father at the gate of their little garden. She had roses in her hands, or rather they were lying across her white arms, and her exquisite face rose above them, thrilling his heart with a strange but powerful sense of a right in her that was wholly satisfying and indisputable.

"I will suffer no one to part me from Lucy," he mused. "She is mine. She belongs to me, and to no other man in this world. I will not leave her.

I might lose her; if I go away, she must go with me. She loves me! I know it! I feel it! When she sat at my side as we were driving together she _was me_. Her personality melted into mine, and Lucy Lugur and Harry Hatton were one. If I felt this, Lucy felt it. I will tell her, and she will believe me, for I am sure she shared that wonderful transfusion of the 'thee into me' which is beyond all explanation, and never felt but with the one soul that is our soul."

Thus as he walked down to the village he thrilled himself with the pictures of his own imaginings; for a pa.s.sionate bewildering love, that had all the unbearable realism of a dream, held him in its unconquerable grip. There may be men who can force themselves to be reasonable in such a condition, but Henry Hatton was not among them; and when he unexpectedly met Lucy's father in the village, he quite forgot that the man knew nothing at all of his affection for his daughter and his intention to marry her.

"Mr. Lugur," he cried almost joyfully, "I was looking for you, hoping to meet you, and here you are! I am so glad!"

Lugur looked up curiously. People did not usually address him with such p.r.o.nounced pleasure, and with Henry Hatton he had not been familiar, or even friendly. "Good evening, Mr. Hatton," he answered, and he touched the cap set so straight and positive on his big, dark head with slight courtesy. "Have you any affair with me, sir?" he asked.

"I have."

"It is my busy night. I was going home, but----"

"Allow me to walk with you, Mr. Lugur."

"Very well. Talking will not hinder. I am at your service, sir."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "He knew her for his own ... as she stood with her father at the gate of their little garden."]

Then Henry Hatton made his heart speak words which no one could have doubted. He was a natural orator, and he was moved by an impetuous longing, that feared nothing but its own defeat. He told Lugur all that he had told himself, and the warmth and eagerness of his pleading touched the man deeply, though he did not interrupt him until he said, "I am going for a year's travel, and I want to marry Lucy, and take her with me."

Then he asked, "Have you spoken to my daughter on the subject of marriage?"

"I want your permission in order to gain hers."

"Does she know that you love her?"

"I have not told her so. I ask that you take me now to your home that I may speak to her this hour."

Lugur made no further remark, until they reached the schoolmaster's house. Then he said, "There is a light, as you may see, in the right-hand room; Lucy is there. Tell her I gave you permission to call on her. Leave the door of the room open; I shall be in the room opposite to it. You may remain an hour if you wish to do so. Leave at once if your visit troubles Lucy." Then with a cold smile he added, "I am her only cicerone, you see. She has no mother. You will remember _that_, Mr.

Hatton." As he spoke, he was looking for his latch-key and using it.

There was a lamp in the hall, and he silently indicated the door of the room in which Lucy was sitting. At the same moment he opened a door opposite and struck a light. Seeing Hatton waiting, he continued, "You have already introduced yourself--go in--the door is open."

He stood still a moment and listened to the faint flutter of Lucy's movement, and the joyous note in her voice as she welcomed her lover.