Carità

by Mrs. Oliphant

Meanwhile Roger Burchell, who was bold, and did not miss his chances, had got Cara away from the croquet players and the talk, on pretence of showing her something. ‘I am coming to see you in town,’ he said. ‘It is as easy to go there as to come here, and I shan’t care for coming here when you are gone. So you need not say good-bye to me.’

‘Very well,’ said Cara, laughing; ‘is that all? I don’t mean to say good-bye to any one. I am not going for good. Of course I shall come back.’

‘You will never come back just the same,’ said Roger; ‘but mind what I tell you. I mean to come to town. I have an aunt at Notting Hill. When I get leave from the college I shall go there. The old lady will be pleased; and so you shall see me every Sunday, just as you do now.’

‘Every Sunday!’ said Cara, slightly surprised. ‘I don’t mind, Roger; it can’t matter to me; but I don’t think they will like it here.’

‘They will like it if you do,’ said the enterprising youth. He was twenty, and soon about to enter on his profession, which was that of an engineer. He was not deeply concerned as to what his parents might feel; but at the same time he was perfectly confident of their appreciation of Cara as an excellent match, should that luck be his. This is not intended to mean that Roger thought of Cara as a good match. He had, on the contrary, an honest boyish love for her, quite true and genuine, if not of the highest kind. She was the prettiest girl he knew, and the sweetest. She was clever too in her way, though that was not his way. She was the sort of girl to be proud of, wherever you might go with her; and, in short, Roger was so fond of Cara, that but for that brilliant idea of his, of passing his Sundays with his aunt at Notting Hill instead of at home, her departure would have clouded heaven and earth for him. As it was, he felt the new was rather an improvement on the old; it would throw him into closer contact with the object of his love. Cara took the arrangement generally with great composure. She was glad enough to think of seeing some one on the dull Sundays; and somehow the Sundays used to be duller in the Square, where nobody minded them, than at the Hill, where they were kept in the most orthodox way. Thus she had no objection to Roger’s visits; but the prospect did not excite her. ‘I suppose you are soon going away somewhere?’ she said, with great calm. ‘Where are you going? to India? You cannot come from India to your aunt at Notting Hill.’

‘But I shall not go—not as long as I can help it—not till——’

Here Roger looked at her with eager eyes. He was not handsome; he was stoutly built, like his father, with puffy cheeks and premature black whiskers. But his eyes at the present moment were full of fire. ‘Not till——’ How much he meant by that broken phrase! and to Cara it meant just nothing at all. She did not even look at him, to meet his eyes, which were so full of ardour. But she was not disinclined to loiter along this walk instead of joining the crowd. She was thinking her own thoughts, not his.

‘I wonder if papa will be changed? I wonder if the house will look strange? I wonder——’ said Cara, half under her breath. She was not talking to him, yet perhaps if he had not been with her, she would not have said the words aloud. He was a kind of shield to her from others, an unconscious half-companion. She did not mind what she said when he was there. Sometimes she replied to him at random; often he so answered her, not knowing what she meant. It was from want of comprehension on his part, not want of attention; but it was simple carelessness on hers. He listened to these wonderings of hers eagerly, with full determination to fathom what she meant.

‘He will be changed, and so will the house,’ said Roger. ‘We may be sure of it. You were but a child when you left; now you are a—young lady. Even if he was not changed, you would think him so,’ cried Roger, with insight which surprised himself; ‘but those who have grown up with you, Cara—I, for instance, who have seen you every day, I can never change. You may think so, but you will be mistaken. I shall always be the same.’

She turned to look at him, half amused, half wondering. ‘You, Roger; but what has that to do with it?’ she said. How little she cared! She had faith in him: oh, yes; did not think he would change; believed he would always be the same. What did it matter? It did not make her either sadder or gladder to know that it was unlikely there would be any alteration in him.