The Pillars of the House Part 80

'But, Willie, you can't make a fortune in five years, and I shall go out at eighteen. I think I shall begin the fortune soonest;' and she laughed merrily.

'Mother didn't make a fortune.'

'I didn't mean that exactly; but I'm learning all the superior branches, and if I got a hundred a year! Think of that, Will! If I went on with that till you are a clergyman and have a living, how nice it would be! There would be plenty to give away; and if we were poor, I would take girls to teach.'

'Do you think I shall ever let you do all the work that way?' said Will, strong in boyhood's infinite possibilities. 'I don't know how it's to be, but I'll keep you out of slaving, though you're a dear girl to think of it. Any way, Robin, you and I will hold together-- always.'

'I am sure I shall never like anybody half so much,' said Robin.

'Shall we break a sixpence and keep the halves? That's the thing, ain't it? I believe I've got one--or fourpence, which is all the same.'

'No, no,' said Robina, backing; 'I don't think Mettie would like it.

It doesn't seem right.'

'But aren't you in earnest. Robin?'

'Oh yes, indeed, indeed I am;' from the depths of a very earnest childish heart that little knew to what it pledged itself.

'And so am I! I'll never care for any one else, Robina--never.'

'Nor I, William. Here they come!'

The other two had not got near so far, though Captain Harewood was talking, and Wilmet listening, as would never have been the case without the influence Willie a.s.serted; but the special charm that enchained Wilmet was entirely unapprehended by her, till just as the first star brightened, and the hues faded from the landscape, she bethought her of her patient, and perceived that he had gone in. 'How late it must be! I must go and see after him. I hope he is equal to the journey.'

'I will come and bring you an account of him on my way home, if I may.'

'Oh, thank you; but it is taxing your goodness too--too much.'

'Cannot you believe how glad I am to have a good excuse?' and the tone gave Wilmet a sudden thrill, so that she answered not; and he continued, 'I am going to beg leave to be sometimes at Bexley.'

'When Felix is at home,' faltered Wilmet.

'I can hardly afford to wait. My time at home is so short. I shall, I hope, make friends with him to-morrow, and perhaps you will neither of you forbid me to come again. I am asking nothing now, only opportunity to try to make you--'

'Oh, don't!' hurriedly broke in Wilmet, standing still in consternation.

'Nay,' he said in a pleading voice, 'I know it would be presumption to think so short an acquaintance could suffice, but you see I have so little time, and all I want is leave to use it in coming to see you.'

'Oh, don't!' she repeated. 'Indeed you had better not. It would be only pain. I couldn't! and I can't have Felix worried,' and there was a startled sob in her voice; but he answered with the strength and sweetness that had upheld her in Lance's most suffering moments.

'I would not distress you or Felix for more than words can utter! I would not have breathed a hint of this most earnest wish of my heart till you had had some preparation, if it were not so impossible otherwise to have any chance of being with you and striving--'

'Please,' entreated Wilmet, 'that is just what should be avoided; it can never come to anything, and the sooner it is stopped the better.'

'Why should it never come to anything?' he asked, encouraged by detecting tears in her voice.

'Because you know--no, you don't know, or you never could think of such a thing--how wrong and impossible it would be for me!'

'No, I don't know. That is what I want to have the opportunity of knowing.'

'I can tell you before,' she answered, faintly. 'Oh, if you would but take my word for it, it would save so much--'

'No, that I cannot do,' he repeated. 'I must see for myself your preciousness at home.'

She broke in again. 'Please, please, I'm saying what I ought not; but it is to hinder distress. Don't want to let us get to like each other any better, for as yet it can't be more than what could be got over, and it is only making pain to let it grow.'

'That I deny. So far as I am concerned, the thing is done. If you wanted to save me that pain, you should have turned me out the moment I saw you call the boy back to life. A month like this is not so easily got over.'

Wilmet dropped her head, and made no answer.

'So, since you see,' he continued, 'you will spare me nothing by holding me aloof, will you not let me come and gladden myself while I may in your presence? And then when my time is up it may be more possible to judge--' (there was a faint 'Oh no,' but he heeded it not) '--whether you can bear such an ugly fellow enough to let him look to the time when home claims may be less pressing. I look for no answer. I only want to be able to ask for one three months hence, and I shall beg your brother to put it into my power so to do.'

'Ah! but to have Felix disturbed and worried is just what must not be. It has made him ill already; and if he thought--'

'I promise not to hara.s.s him,' said Captain Harewood, gently. 'You may trust me to take care that what I shall say will not cause him any very trying perplexity.'

'If you knew--' sighed Wilmet.

'I hope to know,' he replied. 'I do know enough already to be aware that you stand in no common relation to the rest; and if you have my heart, Wilmet, it must follow that somehow I share in your self- devotion. Do not fear my trying to make you less yourself. I want not to take you away from your burthens, but to share them.'

'Yes, you--that is your goodness; but would it be right in us?' she faltered.

'Leave your brother and me to judge of that,' he said.

They were already at the Bailey door, in the shadow of the buildings, the flood of moonlight lying on the tower above, and one little mysterious lamp under the deep brow of the archway of the pa.s.sage. No more pa.s.sed but one 'good-night' from each, he had not even seen her face, under her shady hat; while she hastened to her little room, glad to ascertain that Lance was fast asleep, and with a rush of new sensations bursting on her, against which she was strengthening all the d.y.k.es of her resolute nature. 'He--he--that it should be he! how good! how generous! how kind! Oh, it would be so happy! It _will_ make me happy that he only just thought of it, but it won't do, it is no use. I'm not in love with him; I won't be, I'm not, I'm not!'

And as ardently as Wilmet had ever prayed for Lance's life and reason by that little bed, did she beseech not to be tempted to desert her duties; and all night she lay between sleep and waking, ever repeating to herself. 'I'm not in love, I'm not, I'm not!'

CHAPTER XIX

THE HOUSE WITHOUT PILLARS

'And who save she could soothe the boy, Or turn his tears to tears of joy?'

SAMUEL ROGERS.

Lance's train was at six o'clock, and that by which the sisters were to return to Bexley so little later, that they would await it at the station, so the household was betimes more or less afoot. There was a frenzied scramble of maids and young ladies in hasty toilette; yet breakfast was only forthcoming by personal exertion on the part of the Captain, who made the coffee, boiled the eggs, and sent his brother foraging into the kitchen. Then a message came that mother must see the sweet girl to bid her good-bye; and Wilmet was dragged up to find the paddy good natured face in bed, in an immense frilled nightcap, whence two horn-like curl papers protruded. She was kissed, cried over, and told she was the dearest girl, and Jack the best boy, in the four kingdoms; and while her head was turning round between dizziness at all that this cordiality implied, and a governess's confusion whether these were the four kingdoms of Ireland, or England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, a demand followed for the darling boy; but when she had gravely told the Captain that his mother wanted him, the result was to send him down laughing. 'No, no, I'm not the only darling boy in the world! 'Tis you, Lance. You know the way.'

Between finding her in bed, and being powerfully embraced, Lance's sense of decorum brought him down with his blanched cheeks so rosy red, that the family were choking with suppressed mirth when the omnibus called for the luggage, and the party set forth to walk to the station, Lance in a gra.s.s hat, enfolded by the Captain's hands in an ample puggery, and provided with a natty blue umbrella, presented by the Librarian, 'as a shield against the far-darting Apollo.'

'If this had been in my day,' he said, 'some wit would have produced a neat epigram on Phoebus playing his old tricks out of jealousy of Will's verses, but dainty feats of scholarship are gone out of date.

Well, Patroclus, when we have you back again, I think we shall none of us mourn over the effects of your generous action.'