The Story of Antony Grace Part 58

"Yours affectionately,--

"Miriam Carr."

"My dear Antony," "yours affectionately," I repeated to myself; and as I lay there, after safely placing the note and purse in my pockets, I wished earnestly that the dead could know and thank one who had so evidently my welfare at heart.

Mary soon knew of my good fortune, but did not seem at all surprised.

"No, my dear, it's nothing more than natural," she said, as I partook of tea with her; and in her affection for me she tried very hard to make me bilious with the amount of b.u.t.ter in which she soaked my toast. "You being a gentleman's son, and having had a par and a mar, it was no more than one might expect, for gentlefolks to take notice of you. That Miss Carr's a real lady, and I shouldn't wonder if she was to leave you no end of money when she died."

"Oh, Mary!" I cried, "just as if I wanted Miss Carr to die and leave me her money. I mean to earn some for myself, and when I get rich, you and Revitts shall come and live with me."

"That we will," said Mary. "I'll be your cook, Master Antony, and Bill shall be--shall be--"

"Bailiff and steward."

"Or else gardener," she said. "So you're going to buy some new clothes, are you?"

"Yes, Mary; I must go well dressed to the engineer's."

"Then I should buy two more suits," said Mary eagerly. "Have a good dark blue for Sundays, with gilt b.u.t.tons, and for every day have invisible green."

I shook my head.

"No, I must have black still, Mary, and grey," I said.

"I wouldn't dear; I'd have blue, and as for invisible green, you wouldn't know as it wasn't black."

However, Mary came to my way of thinking, and my choice of new things was in no wise _outre_.

I seemed to be plunged into a perfect atmosphere of love just then, for I left Revitts smiling foolishly at Mary, whose face reflected the lover as perfectly as a mirror, and went on to Hallett's, where I unconsciously found myself mixed up with another trouble of the kind.

I have grown wiser since, but in those days it was a puzzle to me why people could not be friends and fond of one another without plunging into such heart-breaking pa.s.sionate ways, to their own discomfort and that of all whom they knew.

I was rather later than usual at the Halletts', and on going upstairs, full of my good news, I found that Mrs Hallett was in bed, and Linny with her brother.

I ran up, tapped, and went in according to my custom, and then drew back for it was evident that something was wrong, but Hallett called me to stay.

"We have no secrets from you, Antony," he said excitedly. "You know what has taken place from the first, and you are as much Linny's friend as mine."

"Then if he is," cried Linny, stamping her little foot, "I'll appeal to him."

"Why, Linny," I said, "what is the matter?"

"Matter!" she cried, sobbing pa.s.sionately, "have I not given up to him in all he wished? have not I obeyed him and been more like a prisoner here than his sister? And now he is not satisfied."

"I am satisfied, my child," he said kindly. "But go on: what have I done?"

"Done?" cried Linny; "wounded me where you knew my heart was sore; looked upon my every act with suspicion."

"No, my child," he said quietly, as he watched the pretty, wilful little thing more in grief than anger. "You know how happy we have been, these last few weeks, since you have had confidence in me, and listened to my words."

"Happy?" she cried piteously, and with her hand upon her heart.

"Yes," he said; "happy till this letter came to-day--a letter that has swept all your promises to the winds, and sown dissension between us.

Once more, will you show me the letter?"

"Once more," cried Linny pa.s.sionately, "no! You a.s.sume too much. Even if you were my father, you could do no more."

"I stand to you, my dear child, in the place of your dead father. Your honour is as dear to me as it would have been to him."

"My honour!" echoed Linny. "Stephen, you degrade me, by talking in this way before a comparative stranger."

"Antony Grace is not a comparative stranger," said Hallett quietly. "If he were your own brother he could not have acted better to us both. I speak out before him, because I look to Antony, boy though he be, to help me to watch over you and protect you, since you are so weak."

"To act as your spy?"

"No," he said sadly, "we will not degrade ourselves by acting as spies, but you force it upon me, Linny, to take stern measures. You refuse to show me this letter?"

"I do. I would die first!" cried Linny.

"My poor child," he said sadly, "there is no need. I can read it in your transparent little face. You thought, I believe, in the first hot sting of your wrong that night, that you had plucked this foolish love from your breast; and so long as he remained silent you were at rest.

But now he writes to you and says--"

"Hush, Stephen! You shall not before Antony Grace."

"Why not?" he cried. "He says in this letter that he has been wretched ever since; that he begs your pardon for the past; that upon your forgiveness depends his future; and he implores you, by all you hold sacred, to grant him an interview, that he may be forgiven."

"Stephen!" cried Linny, but he went mercilessly on.

"And the foolish, trusting little heart, unused to the wiles of this world, leaped at the words, forgave him on the instant, and a brother's words, her own promises, the vows of amendment, all are forgotten," he said angrily, as his face now grew white and his hands clenched, "and all for the sake of a man who is an utter scoundrel!"

"How dare you!" cried Linny, and the hot pa.s.sionate blood flashed to her little cheeks. Her eyes flamed, her teeth were set, and, in an access of rage, she struck her brother across the lips with the back of her hand. "How dare you call him a scoundrel?" she cried.

"Because," said Hallett--while I stood by, unutterably shocked by the scene, which was the more intense from the low voices in which brother and sister spoke, they being in unison on the point that Mrs Hallett should not hear their quarrel--"because," said Hallett, "his conduct is that of a villain. While professing love for you, he insults you. He tells you you are more dear to him than life, and he skulks like a thief and does not show his face. If he loved you--"

"Love! What do you know of love?" cried Linny pa.s.sionately. "You--you cold-blooded groveller, without soul to worship anything greater than that!"

As she spoke, she stood with her head thrown back, looking the picture of scorn and rage, as she contemptuously pointed at poor Hallett's model; while he, weak, nervous, and overwrought--stung almost to madness, caught her sharply by the shoulder, and in her fear she sank on her knees at his feet.

"My G.o.d!"

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

I BUILD A CASTLE IN THE AIR.

If ever words were uttered with a wild intensity of fervour, it was that awful appeal; and, in the interval that followed, I felt my heart beat painfully, while Hallett, with the great drops standing on his knotted brow, clutched the little shoulder, so that Linny flinched from him.