The Little Colonel's Knight Comes Riding Part 22

Then his face, glowing with an eager gladness that almost transfigured it, paled a little before the mute misery in hers.

"Oh, Rob!" she stammered, finding it hard to believe that she had heard aright. "_Don't_ tell me that! I've always loved you deahly, but not _that_ way." Then as she saw all the light fade out of his eyes and his face settle into grim stern lines, she reached out both hands crying, "Oh, you deah old Bobby! I wouldn't have had it happen for the world! I can't _beah_ to hurt you this way!"

Her eyes filled and two big tears splashed down on the hands she had thrust impulsively into his. With a gentleness that stirred her even more than his words had done, he bent and touched them with his lips.

"Never mind, dear," he said with a great tenderness that brought a sob up into her throat. "Don't think of it any more if it makes you unhappy.

If you could have loved me it would have been heaven, but as you can't we won't talk about it any more. And--I still have my miracle. Nothing can change that."

She could not answer, the tears came crowding so fast, and as they walked back towards the house together all the brightness seemed to have dropped out of the April day. The sweetness of the lilies still followed them, however, and when she glanced around, wondering why, she saw that Rob still held the one he had knelt to pick for her. He twirled it absently in his fingers, but as they parted at the steps he held it out to her with a smile so tender and full of understanding, that another sob came up in her throat and she took it without a word.

CHAPTER XIV

THE ROYAL MANTLE

THE week that followed was an unhappy one for Lloyd. Everywhere she went it seemed to her that lilies-of-the-valley were thrust into her face. On the way to town people got on the car at nearly every station with great bunches of them that they were carrying to offices or to their friends.

The florists' windows were full of them. Men pa.s.sed her on the street wearing them on their coats, and even the little shop-girl, who waited on her at the ribbon counter, had them stuck in her belt. When she called at Mrs. Bisbee's there was a box of them growing on her window-sill, and at home the whole house was permeated by the fragrance that floated out from the great crystal bowl on the library table. She could not get away from them, and they kept Rob constantly in her thoughts.

She told herself that she had never known anything quite so considerate and sweet as the way he had taken her answer. The more she thought of his quick putting aside of self in order that she might not be unhappy, the more it grieved her that he must be disappointed. She did not see him again until the following Sunday. He came into church behind the old Judge and Mrs. Moore, and Lloyd dropped her eyes to her hymn-book, her heart in such a flutter that it sent a queer little tingle all over her.

She was afraid to meet his glance, for fear the consciousness of their last meeting would send the telltale red to her face.

In the pew just behind the Moores' sat Katie Mallard with a girl from Frankfort, who was visiting her, and as Rob took his seat Lloyd saw the guest's pretty eyes fixed inquiringly on him. Then she whispered something to Katie behind her fan. Instantly the wonder crossed Lloyd's mind what the newcomer thought of him, and then she wondered how he would appear to her if she could see him with the eyes of a stranger, without the intimate knowledge their long acquaintance had given her.

She stole a glance in his direction, as the organist pulled out the stops and struck the opening chords of the voluntary. He was certainly good to look at, and, she concluded, the veriest stranger, if he were any judge at all of such things, must see at a glance that his was a strong character, that he would scorn to do a dishonourable thing and that the years behind him were clean and honest. Then with a start she realized that she had been holding him up to her silver yardstick, and that he not only met its three requirements, but went far beyond. He had family, social position, everything that her father had desired for her save wealth, and she remembered how earnestly he had added, on that solemn watch-night, "but all these are nothing when weighed in the balance with the love of an honest man."

This greatest of all had been given her, but she could not accept because--well, she didn't know why--but probably because it was just _Bobby_ who had offered it, and she couldn't think of _him_ as being the one the stars had destined for her--a boy that she had made mud pies with. The old Hildegarde story had been good for her in many ways, but it had made the prince of her dreams a vague personality unlike any man she had ever met. She had never put into words, even to herself, what she expected him to be like, but the shadowy image that her imagination sometimes held up had no flaw like ordinary mortals, no human faults and failings. And she would know him when he came, in some strange, mysterious way that needed no speech--his coming would be heralded like Hebe's: "_Before her ran an influence sweet, that bowed my heart like barley bending._"

The congregation rose for the Gloria and her eyes met Rob's. For one instant in the quick lighting of his face she had a revelation of all that his "miracle of blossoming" meant to him, then he flashed her a rea.s.suring smile that seemed to say: "Never mind, old chum. We'll go on just as we've always done."

That she had interpreted it aright Lloyd knew when he came that afternoon as usual and proposed a walk over past the Lindsey Cabin. He seemed to have put himself into her place so fully that he understood just how she felt towards him; knew that it hurt her to have to withhold the one great thing he desired, and that his friends.h.i.+p was still as dear to her as ever. So with a fine consideration that she was quick to appreciate, he came back to his old place so naturally, and as such a matter of course, that it put her at her ease with him and made it possible for her to ignore the episode of the lilies as if it had never been.

May came with its locust blossoms and the birthday anniversary that made her "old and twenty." One of her gifts was a beautiful saddle-horse, and she began her daily rides again. Several times when Rob could arrange to leave town earlier than usual he rode with her.

Early in June Betty wrote that she was going up into the pine woods of Maine for her vacation. She had been offered a position to teach an hour a day in a sort of summer school, a girls' camp, and the position had too many advantages to refuse. She would be back in time for a week or ten days at The Locusts before the opening of the fall term at Warwick Hall. Lloyd, who had looked forward to Betty's companions.h.i.+p for the entire summer, was sorely disappointed. The same day that that letter came, Rob told her that he was going away for awhile. Some investments his father had made years ago had turned out to be worth investigating, and he was sure he could dispose of them advantageously. At any rate he was going to Birmingham to try. He might be back in a week or two, and he might be away the entire month of June. If Betty had been at home probably Lloyd would not have missed him at all, but because she had to take so many of her walks and rides alone, he was often in her thoughts.

"I can't expect to have every summah as gay as last one was," she said to herself one morning, as she busied herself about her room, changing the arrangement of the pictures. She leaned over to dust the ones above her low bookcase. They ran in a long panel, just above it, the series of garden fancies that Leland Harcourt had suggested. It was on a June morning like this almost a year ago that she had posed for some of them in Doctor Shelby's old garden. It seemed at least four times as long as that. She had grown so much older and wiser. She stooped to look again at the picture of Darby and Joan, under which was written, "Hand in hand while our hair is gray." As she pa.s.sed her duster lightly over the gla.s.s which covered the two dear old faces, she remembered that next week this devoted couple were to celebrate their golden wedding, and that she had promised to let them "borrow" her for a whole week before, to help with the preparations.

An hour later she was opening the gate that led to the old-fas.h.i.+oned door where the ugly little Chinese idol still kept guard and held it open. She found Mrs. Shelby out on her cool upper piazza, behind the moon-vines, in a low sewing chair. She was st.i.tching daintily away on a bit of fine linen. "A wristband for one of Richard's s.h.i.+rts," she explained, after her first moments of delighted greeting. "And I'll go right on with it, for I'm making him a set all by hand for my anniversary present to him. He's always been so proud of my needlework and had so much sentiment for the things I've made myself. I can't begin to tell you how glad I am to have you here. I've been sitting here all morning thinking that if my little Alicia had lived what an interest she would have taken in all my preparations. I keep forgetting that she wouldn't be a young girl like you. It's Alicia's granddaughter who would have been your age."

It took only a question or two to open the gates into this gentle old soul's happy yesterdays, and Lloyd listened and questioned, enjoying the quiet romance that she gathered bit by bit as one gathers the posies of an old garden and clasps them into a full-rounded nosegay.

"Aunt Alicia," she asked presently, "were you _suah_ at the time that you were making no mistake? Didn't you have any doubts or misgivings about the doctah's being the right one?"

Mrs. Shelby laughed. "I must confess that I was a very silly girl who had read so many sentimental stories that my head was full of dreams of some faultless being who should appear like the prince to the Sleeping Beauty and change the whole world for me with a kiss. It was a long time before I could recognize him in the disguise of a poor country doctor.

But I think we are apt to be that way about most things in life, my dear. Familiarity disguises the real worth of most of our blessings. We don't appreciate them till we are forced to miss them for awhile."

"But what finally showed you?" persisted Lloyd. "What made you see through the disguise?"

"Oh, my dear," laughed Mrs. Shelby again. "I couldn't explain a thing like that! How do these moon-flowers know what calls them to open, or the tide when it is time to rise? They _feel_ it, I suppose. They just _know_! That is the way it was with me."

Lloyd came again next day prepared to spend the week. It would be hard to tell who enjoyed the visit the most. Gentle Aunt Alicia fluttered around, hugging the sweet pretence to her heart that for this little s.p.a.ce at least she had a real own daughter beside her, hers to call upon for any service that the little Alicia would have gladly tendered. The old doctor spent every moment he could spare from his office in the s.p.a.cious screened porch leading from the kitchen, where all the preparations were carried gaily forward.

Here, after the invitations were sent, Lloyd spent her time. Under her supervision the old satin wedding gown was brought out and aired and pressed and slightly altered. Its white folds had turned to a mellow ivory in the years it had been laid away, just as the sentiment which cherished it had grown deeper and richer with time. Once as Lloyd intercepted a glance the old doctor exchanged with his wife as they brought out these reminders of their far-away bridal, it made her feel that she was touching with intimate fingers the heart of a sweet and tender old romance.

From the yellowed pages of an old diary, she read a description of the original wedding feast, and with an enthusiasm which went ahead of Mrs.

Shelby's own prepared to copy it in every detail for the golden wedding.

Jellies and cakes and salads, candied rose-leaves and rare spiced confections that had graced the first were all reproduced for this great occasion. Lloyd beat eggs and sh.e.l.led nuts and stirred icing with a zest, while she planned the decorations and gave orders right and left to a household who joyed to do her bidding.

It was not until next to the last great day that Mrs. Shelby made the discovery they had overlooked a certain gold-cake, whose recipe was missing. "And I don't suppose it's to be found anywhere in the Valley,"

she mourned, "unless they've kept Phronie Moore's old cook-book. She was one of my bridesmaids, and she made it with her own hands. It was one of her own special recipes that she was noted for, and I wouldn't have lost it for anything."

"You know the Judge must have kept it, Alicia," the old doctor gently insisted. "You know the slightest thing she ever handled was sacred to him, and it stands to reason that anything she'd taken so much pride in, and written every page with her own hands, as you say, would be preserved. No doubt his daughter-in-law can find it for you without the least trouble."

"Even if she could I wouldn't want to borrow it," began Mrs. Shelby, but Lloyd interrupted briskly. "I'll fix it all right for you, Aunt Alicia.

I'll run right ovah to Oaklea as soon as Daphne gets this in the oven, and ask Mrs. Moore to let me copy the recipe for you."

So that is how it came about that late that afternoon, Lloyd opened the great iron gate at Oaklea, and, following the familiar path under the giant oaks, reached the house to which she had long been a stranger.

Rob's dog, a fine Gordon setter, came out with a boisterous barking, but seeing who it was, leaped up, licking her hands and wagging a friendly welcome. It seemed as if Rob ought to be somewhere near. Everything about the place suggested him. A familiar wide-brimmed gray hat lay on the hall table, his riding-whip beside it. Up-stairs whither the coloured maid led her, there were other reminders of him: Indian clubs and a tennis racquet in a corner of the hall, and a cabinet holding the various collections that had been his fads from time to time.

"Come in here, dear," called Mrs. Moore from the depths of a sleepy hollow chair. "I'm too tired to move, so I knew you'd excuse my sending down for you to come up-stairs."

It was Rob's room into which she was ushered. Mrs. Moore held out both cordial hands without rising, and drew her down for a kiss.

"Rob's coming home to-night," she explained, "so of course everything had to be swept and garnished for so grand an occasion, and I've nearly used myself up making things fine in his honour."

Her eyes filled with tears. "It's the first time he's been away since the dear 'Daddy' left us, and I had no idea four weeks could be such an age. I'm so excited and happy over his coming that I can scarcely talk about it calmly. But you know what a dear good son my 'Robin Adair' is to me, so you can make allowances for a fond mother's foolishness."

It was some moments before Lloyd had an opportunity to make known her errand, apologizing profusely for putting her to any exertion when she was so tired.

"Oh, it's no trouble," answered Mrs. Moore. "I think I know right where to put my hand on the book in father's room. I'll step across the hall and see."

Left to herself Lloyd gave a shy glance around the room, remembering the time when it had been a familiar playground, but now she had an embarra.s.sed sense of intruding. Many an hour she had spent romping in it while Mom Beck and Dinah gossiped by the fire. They had had their menagerie and lions' den in that curtained alcove. Here on the hard-wood floor between the chimney-corner and the window they had chalked the ring for their marble games. She leaned over and examined the floor at her feet with a smile. Those were undoubtedly the dents that their top-spinning had left. Mom Beck had told them at the time, no amount of polis.h.i.+ng could ever wipe out such holes.

The little tin soldiers that used to stand guard on the window-sill had given place to other things now. The rocking-horse that had carried them such long journeys of adventure together had been stabled for years in the attic at The Locusts. College trophies and pennants hung on the walls. A rifle and a shotgun stood in the corner where a wooden gun and a toy sword used to stay. The low table and the picture books had given place to a ma.s.sive desk and rows on rows of heavy volumes bound in leather.

Then she recognized several things belonging to a later period. There was the shaving-paper case she made him the day he bought his first razor. She had been so proud of the monogram she burnt into the leather.

It looked decidedly amateurish to her now. On the leather couch among its many cus.h.i.+ons was the pillow she had embroidered in his fraternity colours and sent to him while he was at college.

Between the front windows where the desk stood, and just above it, ran four long rows of photographs set in narrow panels. Most of them were group pictures, the first dating back to the time of her first house-party, and ending with some that had been taken the week of Eugenia's wedding. It was like a serial story of all their good times, and hastily changing her seat she leaned her elbows on the desk for another look. But the nearer view revealed something that she had not seen at the first glance. _She_ was the central figure of every group.

It was _her_ face that one noticed first, laughing back from every picture.

Abashed at her discovery, she scuttled back to her former seat, but not before her quick glance had showed her another photograph on the desk, in a silver frame. It was the last one Miss Marks had taken of her, in her commencement gown. She did not know that Rob had one of them. She had not given it to him.

Mrs. Moore called out something to her from across the hall, and as she turned to reply she faced still another picture of herself, this one in an old-fas.h.i.+oned silver locket swinging from the side of the mirror. It was the Princess Winsome with the dove. She was afraid to look any further. She felt like an eavesdropper, for the very walls were calling out to her those words of Rob's that she had been trying for weeks to forget: "All my life seems to have been a growing up for this one thing--to love you!"