But now—but now! God knows how he has long hated his downhill course; and now—and now there is no reason, none in heaven above or earth beneath, why their paths should not for ever merge. His head sinks forward on his clasped hands, still jealously clasped upon the lavender sprig, and his hot tears rain on its little dry buds. In his whole life before he has never cried for joy. At night he cannot sleep for that same troublesome joy; but, indeed, he would grudge any slumber that robbed him for even a moment of the consciousness of his blessedness. He feels no need of that lost sleep all next day as he walks, treading on air, through the murky London streets, that seem to him gold-paved, diamond-shining. He knows that he must look senselessly radiant; for, in the course of the day, several people of his acquaintance meeting him ask what he is smiling at. One inquires whether some one has left him a fortune. Before he can stop himself, he has almost answered, 'Yes.' Is not it true—most true? His state of exaltation lasts, with no perceptible lessening, through all that day, through the night—almost as sleepless as the preceding one—that follows it; but on the succeeding morning there comes a check, a very slight one, but still a check to the triumphal course of his felicity. Amongst that morning's letters is one which, at the first glance, he imagines to be from Betty; and though a second look reassures him on this point, and though, on opening it, it proves to be merely an invitation to dinner from a slight acquaintance, yet the train of thought induced by the shock of that first impression successfully pulls him down from his empyrean. What security has he that Betty may not write to him; that now that her terror and her grief are alike past, she may not deride as superstition the conduct dictated by that grief, and, like a child, ask to have back again her given and repented gift? What security has he—a cold sweat breaks out on his forehead at the thought—that any day, on his return from his work, he may not find her standing by the fire, ready to throw herself into his arms, and tell him with sobs that she cannot bear her life without him, and that they must take up again the old relations? And if she does so—there is such a horrible probability in the idea, that it is as well to face it—what answer is he to make her? Would it be chivalrous, loyal, to take her at that word wrung from her anguish, wrung from her when she was no more her real self than if she had been raving in a fit of madness? To make her keep to it, when with tears and prayers she is begging him to let her resume it? And if not, if not—with what a heart-sinking does he face the suggestion—must he again bow his neck to the yoke? Must he again put on his gyves? God save him from that hard alternative!
And so, in the fear of it, he goes day and night. For weeks it takes the edge off his bliss; for weeks he never glances at the addresses of his letters without a pang of dread; for weeks he never turns the handle of his door on his return home from his work without a shiver of apprehension. But not once does his eye alight on that feared handwriting; always his room is empty of that once so longed-for, and now dreaded presence. Ah, he is not so indispensable to her as he had fancied! She can do better without him than in his self-value had appeared possible. He need not be afraid that her fingers will ever again trace his name upon paper, or hurriedly lift his latch. As he realises this, so unaccountable is human nature, a slight pang of irrational regret mingles with the profundity of his relief and joy. But as the days, lengthening and brightening in their advance toward spring, go by, the pang vanishes as the fear had done; only yet more quickly, and his visions possess him wholly. When—when may he make them realities? How soon, without appearing brutally unfeeling towards, prematurely forgetful of, his old sweetheart, may he take his new one by her white hand under the Judas-tree, saying, in the lovely common words that all the world uses and none can improve upon, merely, 'I love you'?
CHAPTER XXIII
No one can be in profounder ignorance than is Peggy of the fact of any one breathing passionate sighs towards her from Downing Street. The only news that she has heard of John Talbot is a casual mention by Freddy of the fact of his having invited him to spend his Christmas at the Manor, and of his having refused without giving any particular reason.
'He does not care for our simple pleasures, I suppose,' says Freddy, with a smile; 'and, on the whole, I am not sorry. He is a good fellow; but we are really much more comfortable by ourselves. I like to have you two dear things all to myself.'
As he speaks he extends a hand apiece impartially to his betrothed and her sister. Peggy is in these days in possession of one of Freddy's hands oftener than she altogether cares about; but, since he is always reminding her that he is now a more than brother to her—in fact, as he has long been in feeling—she decides that it is not worth making a fuss about, and lets her cool and careless fingers lie in that fraternal hand without paying any attention to it. For her the winter has passed tant bien que mal. Christmas had brought her love to Prue, and the mumps to the Evanses; and both events have supplied Peggy with plenty of work.
The Evanses are one of those families who have all their diseases bountifully. Their very mumps are severe and simultaneous. They all have them—father, mother, schoolboys, old baby, new baby. A hireling tells the Christmas news from Mr. Evans's pulpit, while Mr. Evans sits in his study, with the door locked to hinder the intrusion of his suffering progeny, stooping his swelled features over his Earthly Paradise, and thinking with envy and admiration of the institution of a celibate clergy. Both babies bawl from morning to night at this practical joke played upon them by Providence at the outset of their career; and the boys wistfully press their enlarged faces—unnecessarily enlarged, since they were large before—against the frozen panes of the Vicarage windows, in futile longing for the unattainable joys held out to them by the view of the iron-bound Vicarage pond, and the glassy slideableness of the turnpike road.
The calamity to her clergy has thrown the conduct of the whole of the parish charities and gaieties on Peggy's hands. Nor is she without a little nursing on her own account; for Freddy, by dint of keeping his Prue out on the leads till ten o'clock at night, talking to her about himself and the fixed stars, has succeeded in giving her such a cold on the chest, that neither can she hear the Christmas tidings. However, he is so touchingly repentant for what he has done, says such cutting things about himself, and sits by her side so devotedly for hours, reading poetry to her in a charming sympathetic voice, that nobody can be seriously angry with him—least of all Prue, whose one heart-felt prayer is that her cold may become chronic, or that at least she may have a new one every month.