“Now, Stella, if you have quite finished reading that very interesting letter, we will take Mr Bloxam to the summer-house, where I shall formally hand him over to you to entertain. Come along.”
They sauntered down the garden-walk, Mrs Wiseman and Stella walking arm-in-arm in front, and Mr Bloxam, a prey to delighted anticipation and vague uneasiness, following closely. Ever since the episode of the letter a sense of insecurity had weighed on him, and he felt like one walking over ground where pitfalls were imminent. They reached the summer-house. It was an arbour covered with trailing Banksia roses, and into the tender gloom of which the light trickled through tangled greenery. They entered; Mrs Wiseman and Stella sat down together on a rustic bench, and Mr Bloxam, after a moment’s hesitation, took a seat next to Stella.
“Now,” said Mrs Wiseman, with an arch inflection in her voice, “I will leave you two to entertain each other. I have to see about my housekeeping, you know. But I daresay you will not miss me very much.”
With that she stood up and walked away in a manner marvellously light and springy for one of her weight. As she disappeared she threw back a nod over her shoulder with what Mr Bloxam took to be a friendly and sympathetic smile.
Poor Stella sat staring rigidly before her, convulsively grasping the woodwork of the rustic seat, and wondering as to what terrifying development things were now about to take. The moment was one of the few in Mr Bloxam’s life in which he experienced the sensation of bashfulness. He tried hard to think of some effective way of opening the conversation, but the field of rhetoric which he had assiduously cultivated was struck suddenly with blight, and yielded him never a flower at his need. Stella strained her expectant ears to catch Mrs Wiseman’s voice. Mr Bloxam cleared his nervous throat for the third time, and Stella knew, although she could not see them, that his lips were forming to the speech she so much dreaded. Then the longed-for diversion came; a step was heard on the gravelled walk outside, and, after a judiciously loud “Ahem!” Mrs Wiseman appeared in the doorway. Stella looked up at her with eyes full of helpless appeal. Mr Bloxam was still the prey to bashfulness.
“It is really too tiresome; but I find I must ask you to excuse Stella for just a few minutes, Mr Bloxam. Now, don’t be cross; she will be back just now. Mind,” shaking her finger at him, “you are not to move out of the summer-house until she returns.”
Stella joined Mrs Wiseman at the door and accompanied her to the house. Mr Bloxam was, as a matter of fact, extremely glad of the interruption, for he felt he could now collect his thoughts, and thus by the time Stella returned he would be in a position to express his passion in terms of appropriate eloquence. He closed his eyes and leant back in the rustic seat. The ferment in his bosom was, however, too great to admit of his remaining quiet for long, so he stood up and began to pace to and fro.
But what was that lying on the seat from which Stella had just risen? It appeared to be a letter which must have fallen out of her pocket as she stood up. It was folded into a square of about two inches, and the writing was evidently that of a man. He would put it into his pocket and return it to her when she came back. Just then the fact of Stella’s having received a letter in the drawing-room, and the suspiciously confused manner in which she had thereafter left the apartment, loomed up before his mind in ugly prominence. He had been extremely curious about that letter. Who could it have been from? Perhaps from some fellow-passenger. Well, she would be his wife to-morrow (rapturous thought), so there could be no objection to his knowing all about her correspondence. After the usual manner of elderly husbands of young wives, he had strong views as to the advantages of absolute confidence between spouses. He would not mind her reading every letter he had written or received during the past twenty years. Well, she would be back in a few minutes, so he must waste no time if he really meant to gratify what was only a reasonable curiosity, Pshaw! it was but a trifle, after all. Why make such a pother about it? He sat down, opened the sheet carefully, so as to be able to refold it in exactly the same manner, and began to read (the document had no date):—
“My Dearest,—I am very, very sorry that I cannot come and see you to-day, but I am hard at work, and I cannot get leave. Please, like a dear little girl, meet me again in the arbour. I will be there to-night at the same hour. Be sure and leave the gate open. It is very cruel of you to insist on my giving up the few letters of yours I have. Don’t you remember that you promised to write to me every month as long as you live? Ah! if we could only live through these happy months again!