Witness to the Deed Part 32

"There, then--two lumps. I know you take sugar, Malcolm Stratton, and cream. Well, my dear, I'm obliged to speak out; for you really are a pair of impostors, and I cannot have my house made a meeting place for would-be lovers. There--there--there, Mr Stratton, don't pray turn like that, and look as if you were going to rush away. Mine is a very delicate position, and I know my brother will be taking me to task some day about all this. Now, do take my advice; and give it all up--Percy Guest, if you break that cup I'll never forgive you. It cannot be matched."

"Would you advise us to go and try our fortunes in Australia, Miss Jerrold?" said Guest quietly, as he replaced the tiny cup in the middle of its saucer, after nearly sending it on the carpet.

"No, I would not, you stupid boy. There, I don't mean you at all. I dare say Edie will be silly enough to let you wheedle her into matrimony some day--a goose."

Guest touched his breast.

"You? No," said the lady sharply, "Edie. But you two are n.o.bodies. I was thinking about Mr Stratton, here. Now, don't you think, my dear, you had better give it all up?"

She held out her hand with a look of gentle sympathy to him, and he caught it and kissed it.

"Do you think I ever could?" he said, in a low voice while Guest began to display great interest in the painting of the teacup.

"No, I suppose not," said Miss Jerrold, with a sigh. "It's very sad, you see, poor girl, she's going through a curious morbid phase which has completely changed her. All that time she had her ideas that it was her duty to wait and suffer; and I do honestly believe that if that man had behaved himself, been released on a ticket of--ticket of--what do they call those tickets, Percy?"

"Leave," said the young barrister gravely.

"Yes; of course--she would have considered it her duty to go to him if he had come to claim her; and then died of misery and despair in a month."

"Had we not better change the conversation, Miss Jerrold?" said Stratton quietly.

"Yes, of course. I'm a very stupid old woman, I suppose; but Myra does worry me a great deal. One moment, and I've done, and I suppose things must take their course. But all this treating herself as a widow and-- there--there--there--I have done. I suppose I need not tell you they are coming here to-day?"

"I did hope to see Miss--"

"Hush! Don't call her that, my dear. It must be Mrs Barron, or she will consider herself insulted. Ah, she's a strange girl, Mr Stratton, but we can't help liking her all the same, can we?"

She held out her hand to him with a pleasant smile and a nod; and Guest saw his friend's eyes brighten, and then noted his pa.s.sionate, eager look, as there was a ring and knock.

But the ladies who came up were strangers; and it was not until quite the last that Myra and her cousin arrived, the former in black, and with a calm, resigned look in her pale face, which had grown very thoughtful and dreamy during the six months which had elapsed since that morning at breakfast, when the news came of James Dale's tragic end.

And now her eyes softened as she greeted Stratton, and she sat talking to him in a quiet, subdued way, till the gentlemen took their leave, and made their way back to Benchers' Inn.

Hardly a word was spoken till they were in Stratton's room, where Guest threw his hat and umbrella down impatiently, walked straight to the door on the left of the fireplace, opened it, went in, and returned with a cigar box, which he set down, and then went back to fetch out the spirit-stand and a siphon from another shelf, while, dreamy looking and thoughtful, Stratton sat back in an easy-chair watching his friend's free and easy, quite at home, ways, but thinking the while of Myra.

"Might have troubled yourself to get the gla.s.ses," said Guest ill-humouredly, as he fetched a couple of tall, green Venice cups from a cabinet, poured out some whisky, frothed it up from the siphon, and drank.

"That's better," he said, with a sigh of satisfaction. "Aren't you going to have one?"

"Presently."

"Presently? Bah! It's always presently with you. I'm tired of presently. Edie would say 'Yes,' directly, and I could get Aunt Jerrold to coax the old man round if he wanted coaxing. But it's always the same. Look here; if you don't keep your cigars somewhere else, and not on a shelf over that damp bath, I won't smoke 'em. Hardly get 'em to light. Here," he continued, thrusting a cigar and a match-box into Stratton's hands, "do smoke and talk, you give a fellow the blues with your dismal looks."

"I'm very sorry, old fellow," said Stratton, lighting the cigar. "I am not dismal. I feel very happy and contented."

"Then you're easily satisfied," cried Guest.

"Yes; because I hope and believe that if I am patient, my time will come."

"Not it. It's too bad of Myra."

"No; I would not have her change," said Stratton dreamily. "It is a hard and long probation, but I can wait, and I love her all the more dearly for her true womanly behaviour. There, hold your tongue, you miserable, selfish reviler of one whom in your heart you look up to as a pattern of womanhood. The joy would be almost greater than I could bear if she said 'Yes'; but she is right, and I will patiently wait, for some day the time will come."

"There you go again. Presently. It's all very well for you with your calm worship of your ideal woman, and your high-falutin talk about womanhood, etcetera, but I love my little Edie in a non-aesthetic, Christian-like, manly way; and it's maddening to be always kept off by the little thing with, 'No, not till I see poor Myra happy. Then, perhaps, you may begin to talk.' Perhaps and presently make poor food for a fellow like me."

Stratton smiled at him gravely.

"That's right--laugh at me. Tell you what, Mal, you're a poor lover.

Why don't you ask her plump and plain?"

Stratton made no reply but sat back smoking, and his friend said no more for a time. At last, quietly:

"Not such a bad cigar after all, Mal."

Stratton did not reply for a few moments. Then, in a low voice, full of emotion:

"Percy, lad, you must bear with me: it is all too deep for words. If we could change places you would do as I do. Speak to her? pray to her?

Have I not done all this till now when her eyes gaze in mine with their gentle, pleading calm, and say to me--'Bear with me; be patient. If you love me, give me time till all these sorrows of the past have grown blurred and faint with distance.' Guest, old fellow, she gives me no hope. There is no verbal promise, but there is a something in her gentle, compa.s.sionate look which says to me--'Wait; if ever I can forget the past--if ever I marry man--it will be you.'"

There was a deep silence in the room, and faintly heard came the roar of the great city street.

Stratton was the first to break the silence by saying softly to himself:

"Yes; wait: the time will come." Again the silence was broken, this time by a strange hurrying, rustling sound behind the wainscot, followed by a dull thud.

"What's that?" said Guest sharply. "That? Oh, only the rats. There are plenty in this old house."

"Ugh! Brutes."

"They only have runs behind the panelling. They never come into the rooms."

There was another silence before Guest spoke. "Mal, old chap," he said, "I'm a miserable, impatient beast. You are quite right; I'm in my ordinary senses once more. Edie speaks just as you do, and she's as wise a little thing as ever stepped. We must wait, old man; we must wait."

Malcolm Stratton waited till one evening, when fortune favoured him for the moment once again. It was by accident that he found Myra alone. He had heard the tones of the piano as he went up to the drawing room in Bourne Square, and his heart had begun to beat wildly and then its pulsations grew to throbs and bounds, as he went in, to find her alone and playing softly in the half light.

She did not cease, but her fingers strayed on over the keys, and once more as his arm rested upon the piano, the chords thrilled through his very being; and when, without a word, his hands were outstretched to take her to his breast, she sank upon it with a sigh of relief. At that moment steps were heard upon the landing, and Edie and Miss Jerrold entered the room dressed to go to some concert, Sir Mark following directly after, from the dining room, with Guest.

Myra did not shrink from Stratton till all had seen what had taken place. Then, gravely crossing to her father, she laid her hands together upon his breast, while he waited for her to speak.

The words came at last:

"Father, dear, Malcolm has asked me to be his wife."

Sir Mark drew her tightly to him, and held out his hand to Stratton.

"Soon, dear, very soon, but it must be very quiet, and not from here."

"Anything, my darling, to see you happy once again."