Hard Cash Part 6

His tall figure was bending towards her submissively, and his face, as well as his utterance, betrayed considerable agitation.

And what led to so unusual a rencontre between a young gentleman and lady who had never been introduced?

"The Tender Pa.s.sion," says a reader of many novels.

Why, yes; the tenderest in all our nature:

Wounded Vanity.

Naturally proud and sensitive, and inflated by success and flattery, Alfred Hardie had been torturing himself ever since he fled Edward's female relations. He was mortified to the core. He confounded "the fools" (his favourite synonym for his acquaintance) for going and calling Dodd's mother an elder sister, and so not giving him a chance to divine her. And then that he, who prided himself on his discrimination, should take them for ladies of rank, or, at all events, of the highest fas.h.i.+on and, climax of humiliation, that so great a man as he should go and seem to court them by praising Dodd of Exeter, by enlarging upon Dodd of Exeter, by offering to grind Logic with Dodd of Exeter. Who would believe that this was a coincidence, a mere coincidence? They could not be expected to believe it; female vanity would not let them.

He tingled, and was not far from hating the whole family; so bitter a thing is that which I have ventured to dub "The Tenderest Pa.s.sion."

He itched to soothe his irritation by explaining to Edward. Dodd was a frank, good-hearted fellow; he would listen to facts, and convince the ladies in turn. Hardie learned where Dodd's party lodged, and waited about the door to catch him alone: Dodd must be in college by twelve, and would leave Henley before ten. He waited till he was tired of waiting. But at last the door opened; he stepped forward, and out tripped Miss Dodd. "Confound it!" muttered Hardie, and drew back.

However, he stood and admired her graceful figure and action, her ladylike speed without bustling. Had she come back at the same pace, he would never have ventured to stop her: on such a thread do things hang: but she returned very slowly, hanging her head. Her look at him and his headache recurred to him--a look brimful of goodness. She would do as well as Edward, better perhaps. He yielded to impulse, and addressed her, but with all the trepidation of a youth defying the giant Etiquette for the first time in his life.

Julia was a little surprised and fluttered, but did not betray it; she had been taught self-command by example, if not by precept.

"Certainly, Mr. Hardie," said she, within a modest composure a young coquette might have envied under the circ.u.mstances.

Hardie had now only to explain himself; but instead of that, he stood looking at her within silent concern. The fair face she raised to him was wet with tears; so were her eyes, and even the glorious eyelashes were fringed with that tender spray; and it glistened in the moonlight.

This sad and pretty sight drove the vain but generous youth's calamity clean out of his head. "Why, you are crying! Miss Dodd, what is the matter? I hope nothing has happened."

Julia turned her head away a little fretfully, with a "No, no!" But soon her natural candour and simplicity prevailed; a simplicity not without dignity; she turned round to him and looked him in the face. "Why should I deny it to you, sir, who have been good enough to sympathise with us?

We are mortified, sadly mortified, at dear Edward's disgrace; and it has cost us a struggle not to disobey you, and _poison his triumphal cup_ within sad looks. And mamma had to write to him, and console him against to-morrow: but I hope he will not feel it so severely as she does: and I have just posted it myself, and, when I thought of our dear mamma being driven to such expedients, I--Oh!" And the pure young heart, having opened itself by words, must flow a little more.

"Oh, pray don't cry," said young Hardie tenderly; "don't take such a trifle to heart so. You crying makes me feel guilty for letting it happen. It shall never occur again. If I had only known, it should never have happened at all."

"Once is enough," sighed Julia.

"Indeed, you take it too much to heart. It is only out of Oxford a plough is thought much of; especially a single one; that is so very common. You see, Miss Dodd, an university examination consists of several items: neglect but one, and Crichton himself would be ploughed; because brilliancy in your other papers is not allowed to count; that is how the most distinguished man of our day got ploughed for Smalls. I had a narrow escape, I know, for one. But, Miss Dodd, if you knew how far your brother's performance on the river outweighs a mere slip in the schools, in all university men's eyes, the dons' and all, you would not make this bright day end sadly to Oxford by crying. Why, I could find you a thousand men who would be ploughed to-morrow with glory and delight to win one such race as your brother has won two."

Julia sighed again. But it sounded now half like a sigh of relief--the final sigh, with which the fair consent to be consoled.

And indeed this improvement in the music did not escape Hardie. He felt he was on the right tack: he enumerated fluently, and by name, many good men, besides Dean Swift, who had been ploughed, yet had cultivated the field of letters in their turn; and, in short, he was so earnest and plausible, that something like a smile hovered about his hearer's lips, and she glanced askant at him with furtive grat.i.tude from under her silky lashes. But it soon recurred to her that this was rather a long interview to accord to "a stranger," and under the moon; so she said a little stiffly, "And was this what you were good enough to wish to say to me, Mr. Hardie?"

"No, Miss Dodd, to be frank, it was not. My motive in addressing you, without the right to take such a freedom, was egotistical. I came here to clear myself; I--I was afraid you must think me a humbug, you know."

"I do not understand you, indeed."

"Well, I feared you and Mrs. Dodd might think I praised Dodd so, and did what little I did for him, knowing who you were, and wis.h.i.+ng to curry favour with you by all that; and that is so underhand and paltry a way of going to work, I should despise myself."

"Oh, Mr. Hardie," said the young lady, smiling, "How foolish: why, of course, we knew you had no idea."

"Indeed I had not; but how could you know it?"

"Why, we saw it. Do you think we have no eyes? Ah, and much keener ones than gentlemen have. It is mamma and I who are to blame, if anybody; we ought to have declared ourselves: it would have been more generous, more--manly. But we cannot all be gentlemen, you know. It was so sweet to hear Edward praised by one who did not know us; it was like stolen fruit; and by one whom others praise: so, if you can forgive us our slyness, there is an end of the matter."

"Forgive you? you have taken a thorn out of my soul."

"Then I am so glad you summoned courage to speak to me without ceremony.

Mamma would have done better, though; but after all, do not I know her?

my mamma is all goodness and intelligence. And be a.s.sured, sir, she does you justice; and is quite sensible of your _disinterested_ kindness to dear Edward." With this she was about to retire.

"Ah! But you, Miss Dodd? with whom I have taken this unwarrantable liberty?" said Hardie imploringly.

"Me, Mr. Hardie? You do me the honour to require my opinion of your performances: including of course this self-introduction?"

Hardie hung his head; there was a touch of satire in the lady's voice, he thought.

Her soft eyes rested demurely on him a moment; she saw he was a little abashed.

"My opinion of it all is that you have been very kind to us; in being most kind to our poor Edward. I never saw, nor read of anything more generous, more manly. And then _so_ thoughtful, _so_ considerate, _so_ delicate! So instead of criticising you, as you seem to expect, his sister only blesses you, and thanks you from the very bottom of her heart."

She had begun within a polite composure borrowed from mamma; but, once launched, her ardent nature got the better: her colour rose and rose, and her voice sank and sank, and the last words came almost in a whisper; and such a lovely whisper: a gurgle from the heart; and, as she concluded, her delicate hand came sweeping out with a heaven-taught gesture of large and sovereign cordiality, that made even the honest words and the divine tones more eloquent. It was too much; the young man, ardent as herself, and not, in reality, half so timorous, caught fire; and seeing a white, eloquent hand rather near him, caught it, and pressed his warm lips on it in mute adoration and grat.i.tude.

At this she was scared and offended. "Oh; keep that for the Queen!"

cried she, turning scarlet, and tossing her fair head into the air, like a startled stag; and she drew her hand away quickly and decidedly, though not roughly. He stammered a lowly apology--in the very middle of it she said quietly, "Good-bye, Mr. Hardie," and swept, with a gracious little curtsey, through the doorway, leaving him spell-bound.

And so the virginal instinct of self-defence carried her off swiftly and cleverly. But none too soon; for, on entering the house, that external composure her two mothers Mesdames Dodd and Nature had taught her, fell from her like a veil, and she fluttered up the stairs to her own room with hot cheeks, and panted there like some wild thing that has been grasped at and grazed. She felt young Hardie's lips upon the palm of her hand plainly; they seemed to linger there still; it was like light but live velvet This, and the ardent look he had poured into her eyes, set the young creature quivering. n.o.body had looked at her so before, and no young gentleman had imprinted living velvet on her hand. She was alarmed, ashamed, and uneasy. What right had he to look at her like that? What shadow of a right to go and kiss her hand? He could not pretend to think she had put it out to be kissed; ladies put forth the back of the hand for that, not the palm. The truth was he was an impudent fellow, and she hated him now, and herself too, for being so simple as to let him talk to her: mamma would not have been so imprudent when she was a girl.

She would not go down, for she felt there must be something of this kind legibly branded on her face: "Oh! oh! just look at this young lady! She has been letting a young gentleman kiss the palm of her hand; and the feel has not gone off yet; you may see that by her cheeks."

But then, poor Edward! she must go down.

So she put a wet towel to her tell-tale cheeks, and dried them by artistic dabs, avoiding friction, and came downstairs like a mouse, and turned the door-handle noiselessly, and glided into the sitting-room looking so transparent, conscious, and all on fire with beauty and animation, that even Edward was startled, and, in a whisper, bade his mother observe what a pretty girl she was: "Beats all the country girls in a canter." Mrs. Dodd did look; and, consequently, as soon as ever Edward was gone to Oxford, she said to Julia, "You are feverish, love; you have been excited with all this. You had better go to bed."

Julia complied willingly; for she wanted to be alone and think. She retired to her own room, and went the whole day over again; and was happy and sorry, exalted and uneasy, by turns; and ended by excusing Mr.

Hardie's escapade, and throwing the blame on herself. She ought to have been more distant; gentlemen were not expected, nor indeed much wanted, to be modest. A little a.s.surance did not misbecome them. "Really, I think it sets them off," said she to herself.

Grand total: "What _must_ he think of me?"

Time gallops in reverie: the town clock struck twelve, and with its iron tongue remorse entered her youthful conscience. Was this obeying mamma?

Mamma had said, "Go to bed:" not, "Go upstairs and meditate: upon young gentlemen." She gave an expressive shake of her fair shoulders, like a swan flapping the water off its downy wings, and so dismissed the subject from her mind.

Then she said her prayers.

Then she rose from her knees, and in tones of honey said, "Puss! puss!

pretty puss!" and awaited a result.

Thieves and ghosts she did not believe in, yet credited cats under beds, and thought them neither "harmless" nor "necessary" there.

After tenderly evoking the dreaded and chimerical quadruped, she proceeded none the less to careful research, especially of cupboards.

The door of one resisted, and then yielded with a crack, and blew out the candle. "There now," said she.

It was her only light, except her beauty. They allotted each Hebe but one candle, in that ancient burgh. "Well," she thought, "there is moonlight enough to _un_dress by." She went to draw back one of the curtains; but in the act she started back with a little scream. There was a tall figure over the way watching the house.