CHAPTER XXXV.
She advanced a step to meet him, timid, yet with that confidence which social superiority gives: for Dick, I am bound to confess, though I love him, was not one of those wonderful beings who bear the exterior of a fine gentleman even in a workman’s clothes. He was not vulgar in any respect, being perfectly free from every kind of pretension, and with all the essence of fine manners—that politeness of the heart which neither birth nor education by themselves can give; but though, as I have said, his dress was to a certain degree copied from Valentine’s—who possessed the je ne sais quoi in perfection—and was quite well made and unobtrusive, yet I am obliged to allow that Dick had not that mysterious something which makes a gentleman. You could have found no fault with his appearance, and to look at his candid countenance was to trust him; but yet he had not the je ne sais quoi, and Violet knew that, conventionally speaking, she was addressing one who was “not a gentleman” this fact gave her a degree of freedom in calling him which she would scarcely have felt with a stranger of her own class. But more than that, Violet had recognised Dick. It was some years since she had seen him, but she remembered him. Not all at once, it is true. When he appeared first, before he saw her, she had felt as he did, that she had seen his face before; but ere he passed again, she had made out where and how it was that she had seen him; for it must be recollected that Violet’s heart was full to overflowing with thoughts of Val, of whom this stranger, so suddenly and strangely appearing, was a kind of shadow in her mind. The whole scene, in which she had seen this stranger, came before her as by a flash of light, after five minutes’ pondering within herself—for from the first glance she had felt that he was somehow associated with Valentine. What could bring him here, this boatman from the Thames? Her heart was breaking for news of her young lover, so dismally parted from her, whom she must never see again (she thought); but only to hear his name, to know where he was, would be something. She would not have betrayed herself to “a gentleman,” to one of Val’s friends and equals; but of “Mr Brown”—she remembered even his name by good fortune—she might make her inquiries freely. So, urged by the anguish in her poor little breast, Vi took this bold step. She had been sitting thus for hours crying all alone, and thinking to herself that this horrible blank was to go on for ever, that she would nevermore hear of him even—and I have not the heart to blame her for appealing thus to the first possibility of help. She made a step forward and looked at him with a pitiful little smile. “Perhaps you do not remember,” she said, “but I think I am sure it is you. I never forget people whom I have once seen. Did not you row us once, on the Thames, at Eton—my father and——”
“Oh yes, ma’am, to be sure!” cried Dick. “I knew that I had seen you before.” He was a little confused, after his experience with Lady Eskside, how he ought to address a lady, but after reflection decided that “ma’am” must always be right; for had he not heard the Queen herself addressed by the finest of fine ladies as “Ma’am”?
“Yes; and I remember you,” said Vi. Then she made a pause, and with a wistful glance at him, and a sudden flush which went as quickly as it came, added—“I am Mr Ross’s cousin.”
“I recollect now,” cried Dick. “He was so set on it that you should see everything. I think he was a bit better when I left.”
“Better!” cried Violet, clasping her hands together; “was he——” She was going to say, was he ill? and then reflected that, perhaps, it was best not to betray to a stranger how little she knew of him. So she stood looking up in his face, with great eyes dilated. Her eyes had been pathetic and full of entreaty even when poor Vi was at her happiest. Now there is no telling how beseeching those pretty eyes were, with the tears stealing into them, making them bigger, softer, more liquid and tender still. This look quite made an end of poor Dick, who felt disposed to cry too for company, and was aware of some strange, unusual movements in his own good heart.
“Don’t you fret,” he said soothingly; “I brought the old lady the news this morning. He had an accident, and his illness was sudden. But it had nothing to do with the accident,” he added. “Don’t be frightened, ma’am. It’s some fever, but not the worst kind; and the doctor told me himself that he’d pull through.”
“Oh, Mr Brown!” cried poor Vi. She dropped down upon a fallen tree, and began to cry, so that he could scarcely look at her for pity.
“Indeed you must not be frightened,” said Dick. “I am not anxious a bit, after what the doctor told me. Neither is the old lady up there at the Castle—Lady Eskside. She is going with me to-morrow morning to help to nurse him. Mother has him in hand,” Dick added with a little pride, “and he’s very safe with her. Don’t fret like this—now don’t! when I tell you the doctor says he’ll pull through!”
“Oh Val, Val, my Val!” cried poor little Violet. It was not because she was frightened; for at her age—unless experience has taught otherwise—getting better seems so necessary, so inevitable a conclusion to being ill. She was not afraid of his life; but her heart was rent with pity, with tenderness, with that poignant touching remorse, to which the innocent are liable. All that had gone before, all that Valentine had suffered, seemed to come back to her. It was not her fault, but it was “our” fault. She seemed to herself to be involved in the cause of it, though she would have died sooner than harm him. Her lips began to quiver, the tears rained through the fingers with which she tried to hide her piteous streaming eyes. “Oh Val, Val, my Val!” she cried. It was “our” fault; her father had done it, and even good Sandy had had his share; and herself, who had twined her foolish little life with his, so that even parting with her had been another complication in Valentine’s woes. She seemed to see him looking up at her in the moonlight, bidding her good-bye. Oh, why did he think of her? why did he take that trouble for her? She scarcely heard Dick’s anxious attempts at consolation. She was not thinking of the future, in which, no doubt—how could she doubt it?—Valentine would get better; but of the past and of all that made him ill. Her tears, her abandonment to that sorrow, her attempts to command herself, went to Dick’s heart. He stood looking at her, wondering wistfully for the first time in his life over the differences in men’s lots. If he (Dick) were to fall ill, his mother, no doubt, would be grieved; but Dick knew that it would create no commotion in the world; would not “upset” any one as Val’s illness did. Naturally, the good fellow felt, Mr Ross was of much more importance than he was, or could ever be; but still——