Joscelyn Cheshire Part 34

"I had half guessed as much--and I am sorry."

"And Betty loves him. Nay, lie still and look not so angrily at me.

There is no one to blame; a woman's heart, like a man's, asks no permission in the giving of itself."

"But Betty knew--"

"Yes, she knew all the opposition in store for her, and she made her own fight; but love takes no dictation."

"Right well do I know that."

"Then you have no room for a quarrel with her; rather should your sympathy be on her side. All her happiness is set on Eustace; he is her true lover, has been for years,--and I have resolved so to aid her, that you and Aunt Clevering shall not break her heart by a cruel and useless separation." She stepped back and threw up her head; just so had she looked a year ago, when she bade defiance to the short colonel while he himself crouched in her shadowy garret. For a moment they gazed at each other steadily, then she was again beside him, her eyes luminous with a gentle entreaty:--

"Richard, if--if I loved you with all my soul, would you let my mother's dislike, if she did dislike you, stand between us?"

"My G.o.d, no!"

"Eustace is a man like you--and Betty loves him like that."

He saw the drift of her meaning but he did not answer, and thus for another minute they looked into each other's eyes unwaveringly; then his gaze fell, and with a sudden delicious softening of manner, she stooped and took his hand.

"Richard, Eustace is yonder in my parlour,--come back like a brave man to begin life all over, and suffer anything to be near Betty. He has been denied entrance at your door. Bid me bring him here to you. If not--then will I take Betty to him, even though I should thus lose yours and Aunt Clevering's friends.h.i.+p forever."

"You make hard terms."

"I am dealing with a hard man."

"Think you so, sweetheart? Methought I had ever been gentle to you.

Betty's happiness is very dear to me--" he broke off, sighing. She still held his hand, or rather he held hers, for his was the stronger grasp.

Suddenly, with that same enchanting gentleness, she bent close to him, and laid her cheek against his tingling fingers:--

"Thank you, Richard, for yielding; I knew when once you understood, you could not be so cruel as to refuse. I will bring Eustace at once."

"But, Joscelyn, I did not say--"

"Oh, but you looked your consent--and I never saw your eyes so beautiful, such a tender gray." He flushed with pleasure, still, however, protesting; but she was already at the door, whence she looked back at him with a roguish smile, "I shall give you half an hour to make Aunt Clevering see things as we do. At the end of that time I will be here with Eustace; and if you wish to go on being friends with me, be sure to have on your very best manners and--and that beautiful light in your eyes."

She kept her word; no one ever knew what pa.s.sed between Richard and his mother, but an hour later Mistress Clevering, stiff of lip, but courteous of manner, bade Betty take Master Singleton from Richard's room to the parlour, and find him some refreshment. And when Betty had obeyed, Joscelyn softly closed the door behind them, shutting them into a rose-hued world of their own, where it were sacrilege for another to intrude. Upstairs she heard Richard calling her entreatingly, but remembering by what means her victory over his prejudice had been won, she pretended not to hear, but ran swiftly into the street, and reached Mistress Strudwick's door with such a glowing face that that lady exclaimed:--

"Hoity-toity, child! still letting your cheeks play the Royalist, although the war is done? Your sweetheart should see you now. In sooth, I think Amanda Bryce would even agree that you are pretty. Come here and tell an old woman what all these blushes mean."

And Joscelyn's fibbing tongue said it was only the race she had run in the wind from her door.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

AN UNANSWERED QUESTION.

"As o'er the gra.s.s, beneath the larches there We gayly stepped, the high noon overhead, Then Love was born--was born so strong and fair."

--GIPSY SONG.

Although Joscelyn continued to hold herself aloof from Richard, yet she was conscious of his protecting influence in other ways besides the healing of that family quarrel that had been such a burden to her and to them all. Most of the women of her set continued to cut her outright, or to treat her with the scantest courtesy; but there were no more threats concerning her; the boys who had hooted under her window left off their insolent ways, and the merchants and tradespeople no longer gave her indifferent service. And in all this she recognized Richard's work, for he had openly espoused her cause, and had let it be known that those who offended or ill-used her should later on be answerable to him. From the day of his coming, she felt herself shadowed by an un.o.btrusive but persistent watchfulness that plucked many a thorn from her path; and after the stormy months that had pa.s.sed, she could not but be grateful for the calm. Invalid though he was, she intuitively felt his to be the stronger will, and made no fight against what he did in her behalf. The protection for which she had longed had come to her, and she was glad to feel his strength between her and her persecutors. Never in any boastful way did he remind her of the defeat of her cause; and tacitly she acknowledged his generosity. The very perils they had shared drew them together with that subtle bond of sympathy a mutual interest creates; and so seldom was there a return to their former sparring that Mistress Strudwick protested she knew not which had the better manners.

"I declare, my dear," she said, pinching Joscelyn's cheek, "you are so beautifully behaved of late that I begin to find you a bit tiresome.

Methinks I must stir up Amanda Bryce to pay you a visit and talk over the war, or else we'll all be stagnating for lack of excitement."

"Well, after these eight years of fermentation, stagnation is just now the special estate to which I aspire."

"So? Well, Richard here prefers the estate of matrimony. Is it not true, my lad?" And from the sofa Richard's eyes said yes; whereupon the old lady went on, nodding her head with mock solemnity, "And since one of you wants stagnation and one wants matrimony, I am not so sure but that you are of the same mind, for some folk find these things of a piece.

And so, miss, you may have come around to Richard's way of thinking after all."

And seeing Joscelyn stiffen, Richard was sorry that the conversation had taken such a personal turn; for the two had come in to pay him a visit.

That was one thing that troubled him--she never came by herself; always it was her mother or Betty or Janet Cameron she brought with her as though she feared to trust herself alone with him, wis.h.i.+ng, perchance, to hear no more of his love-making. And even with these others she came so seldom. He could not go to her, for the hard rough journey home had racked his arm and set the fever to throbbing again in his blood, and he must remain quiet, or dire consequences were threatened.

But one February night, when she had stayed away several days, and the longing in his breast grew unbearable, he sent for her. The wind without howled like some hungry creature seeking its prey, and the white-fingered spirit of the snowstorm tapped weirdly at his window. But he gave it no heed; storm or s.h.i.+ne, he must see her this night of all others; and so a word of entreaty was sent across the street. She came at once, a brilliant apparition in a scarlet shawl over which the snow lay powdered in s.h.i.+ning crystals; on her lips and in her eyes the smile of which he had dreamed in the copper and crimson sunsets on the prison-s.h.i.+p. He gathered her cold hands into his feverish ones.

"You knew I must see you this night?"

"Yes; I felt you would send for me, for I knew we were thinking of the same things."

"A year ago to-night you and I stood in jeopardy of our lives."

She nodded; all day she had been living over those fearful hours of which this day was the anniversary.

"Yes, a year ago to-night Tarleton held us in his toils."

"We have never talked of that dreadful time; now I want you to tell me everything you can recall of it. Sit down."

As she obeyed, the wide shawl fell away and left in sight the silver brocade of her gown, and her shoulders rising white and beautiful from the lace of the low bodice. He started, and raised himself upon his elbow. Was he dreaming? No; the powder and the rose were in her hair, the saucy patch at the corner of her mouth. She had not forgotten; just so had she looked when she faced Tarleton, and risked her womanhood for his own safety. He could not speak, but his eyes did full homage to her beauty.

"I knew you would send for me, so I was ready," she said, and smiled again. So it was for him she had robed herself thus!--there was a thrill of ecstasy in his veins. And then when he still did not speak, for sheer joy of looking at her, she began to talk of that terrible day; and both of them lived over in a quick rush of memory all its hopes and fears, its uncertainties and dangers. Her fingers were icy cold, and the very tremors that had then possessed her, crept again through her veins as she went from scene to scene, and he learned for the first time all of her deceptions and trials. So absorbed was she that she did not even know he had taken her hands in his, until she felt the hot pressure at the end of her narrative. Then when there seemed nothing left to tell, and he still looked at her in a silence more eloquent than words, she grew restless and rose to go; but he caught her skirt.

"Not yet, not yet! Betty is happy with her lover in the parlour, and mother is somewhere down there acting propriety or else fast asleep. For this one evening, at least, you shall belong to me."

And then when those hot, trembling fingers had drawn her again to her seat, he went on:--

"There is one question I have wanted to ask you all these months--" And then, for very fear of her answer, he hesitated and subst.i.tuted another.

"Why did you not come back to me that last night? You knew I was waiting for you, longing for you with every heart-throb."

"It was so late."

"Late? What mattered an hour on the dial when I wanted you so much?"

And she flushed and hesitated, remembering she had not gone back at that unseemingly hour lest he should misunderstand her; men were so cold in their judgments. Looking at him now she was ashamed of that doubt of him.

"Was it in truth the lateness of the hour, or--or because of what Barry said to you on the stair? I opened the attic door and saw you, and I knew he was talking of his love. My G.o.d, how I envied him! Was it for that you stayed away from me?"