Chapter Twenty Two.
Tell him to come to see me.
The Priory was taken, and in less than twenty-four hours, my mother found herself the occupant of a large, luxuriously-furnished chamber. Her windows commanded an extensive and most lovely view. She had a glimpse of the winding river which made our little village a favourite summer resort for anglers. It meandered away like a narrow silver thread in the midst of the peaceful landscape. Already there was a faint tinge of soft, pale green on the trees, and an added brightness was making the grass beautiful with a fresh growth. The Priory had sloping lawns, flower-beds carefully tended and gay with all the early spring flowers. There were greenhouses in abundance; there were gravel-walks and tennis-courts; in short, the usual pleasure-grounds which surround a country home of some pretension.
Inside the appointments were perfect. An able staff of servants attended to our every want. There were suites of beautiful rooms, bright, and gay, and clean. Fresh air and sweetness pervaded everything. In short, there could scarcely have been found a greater contrast than Myrtle Cottage, where the Lindley family had resided for so many years, and the Priory, where that same family now enjoyed the pleasures of refined existence.
It is surprising how soon one gets accustomed to luxury. My father and brother, who began by accepting the good things of life with a humility almost painful to witness, before a week was out grumbled about the quality of the soup served at dinner, and expressed in plaintive tones their dislike to turbot appearing too often on the board.
“You must see to this, Rosamund,” George would say, shaking his head, and my father would descant on the menage of that West End club to which he belonged a great many years ago, before he married my mother.
Meanwhile I lived in a sort of dream. I was not unhappy, for my mother was better. The new life suited her. My father’s cheerful tones were more stimulating and strengthening than the best champagne or the strongest beef-tea.
At the end of the first week she expressed a desire to see Jack and his wife again.
“I will write and ask them to come here,” I said. I went down-stairs prepared to do this. I was thinking of the pleasure my letter would give to Hetty. How she would hurry her own and her husband’s departure—how pretty and surprised she would look when she came to our luxurious new home—how nice it would be to dress her suitably, and make life sweet and pleasant to her. I was thinking these thoughts and forgetting all about the conditions of Cousin Geoffrey’s will, when I went into the drawing-room to fetch my writing portfolio which I had left there on the previous evening.
“Hey-day!” said a voice. I raised my eyes and found myself face to face with Mr Gray. “How do you do, Miss Rosamund?” he said, shaking my hand. “I judge from your own blooming appearance that your mother is much better.”
“Yes, she is much better,” I replied.
“What a wise girl you are, and were! How much I respect you! Now can you give me a few moments of your time?”
“Yes,” I replied. My “Yes” was uttered in a meek voice. The gladness had gone out of my face and manner. “Yes,” I repeated, “my time is, of course, at your disposal, Mr Gray.”
“Well, let us sit here comfortably on this sofa. Miss Rosamund, I have been very considerate to you, have I not? I have not troubled you with word or message for a whole week.”
“I know it,” I replied. “I know you have been kind.” My eyes filled with tears.
“It is a great wonder to me,” began Mr Gray. He stopped abruptly. “I don’t understand what girls are made of,” he continued under his breath—“the very nicest fellow!—Miss Rosamund, please answer me one question. Do you greatly object to marrying your—your cousin?”
“I am not bound to reply to you,” I said. “I knew that I should have to marry my cousin if he were willing to have me when I wrote you that letter a week ago. I did it for my mother’s sake.” My tears were dropping. I felt dreadfully weak and childish. I hated myself for giving way to emotion in this fashion.
“Yes, yes,” said Mr Gray, patting my arm, “and you were a very plucky girl, Miss Rosamund, and you are going to have a happy—most happy life. Your cousin is a first-class fellow—first-class. I had the pleasure of communicating to him the contents of the will a few days ago, and he sends you a message now.”
“What—what is it?” I stammered.
“He says you are to take your own time. He won’t even come to see you unless you wish it. He had made all arrangements to go back to Africa, and he will go all the same unless you wish him to remain. It all rests with you, he says. Nothing could be more gentlemanly than his conduct.”
I sat very still, my eyes were fixed on the spring landscape outside the window.
“There has been no—no letter, I suppose?” I said.
“There is no letter, but not for want of thought, I assure you. Your cousin felt that you would rather not hear from him. He said I could convey his wishes to you; in short, his wishes are yours. There is just one thing more. If you elect to postpone the—the marriage for a year, I have made arrangements to supply you with funds to live on at the Priory with your family.”
I sat very still.
I don’t know why, but my silence and almost apathy began to irritate Mr Gray very much. I felt that he was looking at me impatiently. I even heard him sigh. Suddenly he sprang to his feet.
“What answer am I to take to Tom Valentine?” he asked.
Then I raised my head.
“Tell him to come to see me,” I said.
“Good gracious! Do you mean it?”
“I do mean it.”
“When is he to come?”
“To-night, if he likes—the sooner the better.”
I rushed away, I flew up the wide stairs. My one desire was to take refuge in my mother’s room. A wide bay-window faced the sofa where she lay. The sun had set more than half an hour ago, but faint rose tints still lingered in the sky, and a full moon was showing her cold but brilliant face. The weather was turning quite genial and spring-like. Under ordinary circumstances I should not have cared to sit so near the fire. Now I huddled up to it, glad of its warmth, for I was shivering slightly, with the queerest mixture of suppressed excitement, despair, and yet gladness. Now and then I glanced at my mother. From where she lay I could only see a dim outline of her figure. She was lying very still; her hands were peacefully folded by her side; her breathing came gently; there was repose about her attitude.
Her voice, very sweet and clear, soon broke the silence.
“Rose, come here, darling.”
I sprang up, ran to her, and knelt by her side. My mother often called me in this way, not because she had anything special to say, but because she liked to feel my firm young hand clasping hers.
She laid her fingers in mine now, and turned her soft brown eyes to catch the outline of my face.
“Mother!” I exclaimed with sudden passion, “in all the wide world you are to me the very sweetest, the dearest, the best.” Tears trembled in my voice, and almost choked me. I hated myself for giving way. My mother kept on looking at me. She softly patted the hand which held one of hers. It was not in her to express her feelings except by that gentlest of touches.
“And if you die, I shall die,” I continued. “Mother, you must get better—you must live, you must!”
“It is as God wills, my darling.”
“That is just it, mother. He would not have made us rich if He did not will that you are to live. Poverty and care were killing you. Now they have folded their wings, and gone away. You will always be rich in the future; you will always have the most nourishing food, the softest care, the tenderest love. Don’t you think you can nestle down into the love and the care, mother? Don’t you think you can try?”
“I do try, Rose. But poverty—poverty and trouble have left their mark. That mark has sunk deep, very deep. Still, I will try to live for your sake—indeed, for all your sakes. Don’t cry, my dear daughter.”
I wiped my tears softly away. After a time, I said in a voice which I tried hard not to be tremulous:
“Are you strong enough, mother, for me to say something?”
“Yes, my darling, certainly.”
“Are you not a little surprised, mother, at this sudden change? Are you not a little curious to know by what means poverty has folded her wings and flown away from us?” My mother was silent for nearly a full moment, then she said slowly:
“I know you have a story to tell me whenever I am ready to hear it. But I am too weak to listen to it to-night. Weakness keeps us from being very curious, Rose. I don’t think, even in health, I was ever inordinately curious about anything. I was always able to take things on trust from those I loved. I can take riches on trust for the present, Rose.”
“You are just the sweetest mother in the world,” I said, kissing her on her forehead.
Just then the peal of the front-door bell penetrated into my mother’s room. I started back at the sound.
“What is the matter, dear?” she asked. “Did that bell startle you?”
“It did, mother, because—because I know who has come.”
“Some friend of yours, darling?”
“Yes, a—a friend of mine. I must go down-stairs to see him. Mother, give me your two hands for a moment.”
She gave them without a word. I bent low, and placed my mother’s hands on my head.
“Mother, say these words over me, ‘God bless you, Rosamund; your mother’s God bless you!’”
“Your mother’s God abundantly bless you, my precious daughter?” said my mother.
I kissed her thin hands passionately, and ran out of the room.
A footman in livery was coming up the stairs. He bore a card on a silver salver.
“The gentleman is in the drawing-room, miss,” he said.
I took the card, rushed past the astonished servant, and untidy and discomposed, tears scarcely dried on my cheeks, entered the drawing-room.
My cousin Tom was standing by one of the windows. When he heard my step he turned quickly round, advanced a pace or two, then stood still, a crimson wave of colour dyeing his darkly-bronzed cheeks, and his white brow. He looked confused, awkward, uncertain. I, on the contrary, had no room in my over-full heart for embarrassment.
“I have sent for you, Cousin Tom,” I said, “to say that I will marry you as soon as ever you will have me.” I looked him full in the face as I spoke, and when I had finished I held out one of my hands for him to take.
He stared at me for a moment in absolute astonishment. Then a queer change came over his whole face. It became irradiated with the sweetest and most joyful light. He took my slim fingers between his two great hands, and almost crushed them.
“And I would marry you to-morrow, Rosamund,” he said, “not because of Cousin Geoffrey’s will, but because I love you for yourself. I love you, Rosamund; I have loved you since—”
There came an interruption. The drawing-room door was banged noisily open. Jack’s voice was heard on the threshold. Hetty’s gay, agitated little treble followed it.
Tom Valentine dropped my hands.