V
Once inside the Miller stronghold again, Benedicta went from bad to worse. Her father confirmed and strengthened all her theories. He was inordinately interested to hear that she had met young Dumall, and he remembered any number of new things about the two families.
When they sat down to their ill cooked, meager dinner, the fact that it hadn’t been paid for was amply compensated by eating it with old silver from old china. Mr. Miller, looking at his child, had not a single pang of regret that her youth and her loveliness were shut up in that dismal ruin. He felt, instead, a surge of pride and gratitude that she was a Miller.
Young Dumall came that very evening, bringing a book for Benedicta; but he did not show the least desire for a decorous conversation on family topics with her father.
In spite of his scholarly tastes and his shy, quiet air, he was a young fellow of enterprise and resolution. He suggested taking a walk, for the inadequate reason that the moon was up. So Mr. Miller was left alone—which, after all, was the fate he had chosen for himself.
Benedicta had fixed ideas about courtships. It cannot be denied that, although she had seen this young man only twice, and had no proper foundation for such a notion, she believed that this was the beginning of a courtship. The most singular delight and confusion filled her heart. She didn’t wish to speak, or wish him to speak. Later, after they had known each other for weeks and weeks, would come the moment when he would tell her those wonderful things of which she had read; but now all she wanted in the world was to walk by his side on the long, dim road, soft with dust, with the crickets chirping in the parched grass, and the breeze, sweet with the breath of the fields and the hills, blowing against her face.
Young Dumall, apparently, had no such ideas about courtships.[Pg 135]
“You know,” he said, “I’m poor enough—”
“Oh!” Benedicta interrupted. “What does that matter? It’s something to be proud of—in these days, when people like the Wilkinsons have so much money.”
He turned toward her, but it was too dark to read her face.
“I don’t see anything wrong with the Wilkinsons,” he said. “They’re the best friends I’ve ever had.”
Benedicta was a little nettled at this.
“Of course they’re very nice, and all that,” she answered; “but they’re not at all our sort.”
“That’s our misfortune,” declared Francis. “Mr. Wilkinson made money because he worked hard and used his wits. Our sort of people wouldn’t work, and thought it a fine thing not to have any common sense. I’m not proud of being poor—and I’m not going to stay poor!”
“There are better things in life than hard work and common sense,” observed Benedicta stiffly.
“I know that,” said he; “but you can’t get or keep those better things without hard work and common sense. Valuable things have to be paid for.”
“The very best things can’t be bought,” said she.
“You can’t get them any other way,” said he.
Benedicta was growing rather angry.
“Not good blood,” she said. “Not family and traditions.”
“But, see here!” he interposed. “Haven’t you ever heard or read how the people we came from—the old Millers and the Dumalls—got what we’re so proud of now? They bought all they ever had. They often paid with their lives, and always with the hardest, most dangerous kind of service. After they’d come to this country and cleared their land, they had to defend it. All the Dumalls who amounted to anything were fighters in one way or another—not necessarily soldiers, but men who held their own. When they stopped fighting—and paying—they didn’t amount to anything any more. I don’t intend to spend my life talking about what other and better men have done before me. I’m a man myself, and I mean to do something worth doing!”
Benedicta was a traitor. She agreed with every word he said. She was so thrilled by his boyish spirit that she could have wept with pride and joy. She thought to herself that he was like a knight, that he was the bravest, finest, most wonderful creature who had ever walked the earth.
“I’m sure you will!” she cried.
He stopped short.
“Do you really think so, Benedicta?” he asked.
He called her Benedicta, and his voice—
“Yes,” she answered, very low.
“Benedicta,” he said again, “I can’t say what I want to say to you just now—not yet; but if I thought—I could do anything in the world if it was for you!”
It was necessarily a very long walk, with so much to be said. Benedicta came home with a hole walked through one of her best slippers; but she had heard the important things necessary for her to know. She had heard exactly why he felt that way, and at what instant he had begun to feel that way. She had given him permission to go ahead and do anything in the world for her; and he had kissed her—an awkward little kiss—when they said good night at the gate.