Paddy The Next Best Thing Part 29

"Then you ought not to want me to get married," she said.

"You know I only want you to have a good time, and that I'd rather a thousand time you were a man and could come with me to the Argentine."

Paddy slipped her arm through his and rubbed her face against his coat-sleeve caressingly. "I know you would, Jack. I'm just horrid, but you must forget and make allowances. I feel--oh, I don't know what I feel--it's so positively awful."

"I know," he said feelingly. "That's just it, positively awful. But it's not any good minding, so we'd better go on trying to pretend we don't. I'll be glad when we're started now. I dread to-morrow so."

The next evening they stood together leaning on the s.h.i.+p rail, and straining their eyes up the loch while they steamed away from Greenore.

The terrible day was over at last, and both felt quite exhausted. "How had they ever kept up at all?" they wondered, through those three meals of forced conversations, forced smiles, and poor attempts at merriment.

How had the aunties ever kept up? Of a certainty they were sobbing their hearts out now in the empty, empty Parsonage. There had been no tears until the final good-by and then the strain had become too much for them. But Jack had still held on manfully.

"Don't you fret, aunties," he said, with an odd little crack in his voice. "I'll be back almost before you've had time to tidy up after me, with pockets full of gold; and Paddy and I will be flying over the furniture again, and you'll both be collecting the ornaments, and you'll just forget we've ever been away at all."

"That's if I don't poison somebody and get hanged meanwhile," said Paddy in a cheerful way that made them all laugh in spite of themselves. "I'm sure I'll never know one medicine from another."

And now the s.h.i.+p is steaming away, and the two travellers strain their eyes to the familiar mountains, outlined distinctly against the star-spangled sky in the bright moonlight.

"I'm glad we can see the old giant on Carlingford Mountain," Paddy said.

"I've always had a kind of fondness for him. He lies there so calmly through all weathers, and when it's bright and sunny and not too hot I can always imagine him heaving a sigh of content that it's not raining, or snowing, or anything unpleasant. Good-by, old man," waving her hand to him. "I'll be back again soon, and mind you don't change in any way.

I want you to look exactly the same when I come again.

"There are the lights at Warrenpoint," she ran on. "Isn't it odd to think that the people there are going about just as usual; and next summer the Pierrots will come again, and we shall all be so far away?

The mountains look specially beautiful to-night, don't they? My dear Mourne Mountains, it's just as if they put on their very best dresses, to look their nicest for our sake. I'm quite sure they're sorry, Jack.

They're just awfully sorry, but they can't say it. You see they've watched us grow up, and we must have amused them a good deal at times.

They know all about that first rabbit we shot, when we stole daddy's gun. How proud we were, weren't we? And they were so angry at home, instead of delighted as we thought they ought to be, when we carried in the trophies of our big game expedition. You were Selous, you know, and I was Captain Bailey. We had been reading about them just before. I expect they know about every time we have got capsized in the loch, and each time we were lost and nearly got in bogs, and just all about everything. Good-by again!" and she waved her handkerchief slowly. A bitter sea wind struck them.

"You'll catch cold," said Jack. "Come in."

"All right," and she turned away. At the entrance to the salon she looked back once more. "Good-by," she said softly to the night.

"Good-by, daddy's grave--try and keep nice. Daddy himself will be in London with me."

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

GWENDOLINE CAREW.

Lawrence Blake found Calcutta even more to his liking than he expected.

When he left England what conscience he possessed p.r.i.c.ked him rather severely, but when he reached India he was able to plunge into a round of gaieties that left him little enough time to think. Still, whenever he remembered Eileen he felt the same twinge. He recognised that she was not quite like other girls. She had not in any way laid herself open to the blow he had dealt her, and she had certainly not led him on.

All through she had been just her own natural self, and he could not but know this only placed his conduct in a still less pleasant light.

It would have been nothing to be proud of with any girl, but it does sometimes happen that a man is not wholly to blame when he has gone further than he meant.

At the same time Lawrence was a little surprised. He had several times paid quite as much and even more attention to members of the fair s.e.x without meaning it, and gone quietly away, but he never before remembered experiencing the unpleasant sensation that he had acted like a cad. Did he then care more than he supposed? he asked once or twice.

No, this was not the solution, for if anything, he felt relief as the distance between them lengthened. It was then, perhaps, the fearless measure of scorn that Paddy had dealt out to him, forcing him to see himself as he looked in the eyes of anyone who loved truth and sincerity. This, and the growing consciousness of how infinitely above him in all that matters most, was the girl whose heart he had carelessly trifled with.

The pa.s.sengers on that particular P. and O. steamboat bound for India found Lawrence taciturn and morose to a degree, and in the end left him severely alone. When he arrived in Calcutta he revived, for there was so much to distract his attention. Gwendoline was charming. Earl Selloyd's attentions were more p.r.o.nounced than ever, and playing at rivals amused him. And there was no risk of any serious harm this time either, for Gwen was a wholly different type of girl from Eileen, and perfectly well able to take care of herself. She liked queening it over him, and he was useful to her, and for the rest she was more likely to trifle with him, than give him a chance to trifle with her.

They saw a great deal of each other because Lawrence was a great friend of both her father's and mother's, and their doors were always open to him. So, while living at his club in Calcutta, he spent a part of each day with the Carews, either lounging in the morning-room in the morning, or dining with them in the evening, or accompanying them to some of the endless social festivities they attended.

People soon began to talk, and generally designated him the Earl's chief rival, but neither Gwendoline nor Lawrence paid any attention, only amusing themselves with the Earl's discomfiture. Mrs Carew was rather set upon the coronet, however, and endeavoured to enlist Lawrence upon her side. The topic was brought up in the drawing-room one afternoon about a month after he arrived, and just in the middle of it Gwen herself burst into the room.

"He is an extremely nice man, and it is such an excellent position," her mother was saying, and then, she stopped short to find her daughter standing before her with laughter in her splendid dark eyes.

"So mamma is making a countess of me off-hand, is she?" she asked, turning to Lawrence, who was looking on with an amused smile from the depths of a big easy-chair.

"We were just considering how a coronet would become you," he replied.

"Oh! the coronet's all right," shrugging her shoulders, "but the man!

Heaven preserve me from marrying a woolly lamb with a spring inside, that says 'Baa-a-a' when you squeeze it."

"I didn't think you had got so far as that," said Lawrence wickedly.

"Don't try to be funny," retorted Gwen; "it doesn't suit your peculiar style of cleverness. Look here, mother," turning to Mrs Carew again with the air of a young queen, "don't you go setting your heart on Selloyd for a son-in-law, because I won't have him. I won't have anybody yet. I'm having a glorious time, and I mean to keep on. It's all rot wanting to tie a girl up her first season. I mean to have three seasons, and then, if no one else will have me, I'll take Lawrence," and she flashed a bewitching glance at him.

"Lawrence won't want a wife who's been in the lists three seasons," said her mother.

"Lawrence will do as he's told," promptly. "It will be a new experience, and very good for him."

"And afterward I suppose you'll allow me the same beneficial course with you," he remarked.

"Oh, no," laughing. "Women who are reigning types of English beauty never have to do as they are told. They simply reign."

"All the same I'm afraid Lawrence would know you far too well to put his head in such a noose," said Mrs Carew. "If any man would let you do as you liked, Selloyd would, and they say he is fabulously rich."

"I don't care. He can keep his old riches and his old t.i.tle: I tell you I'm having a good time, and I don't mean to change it. With half Calcutta at your feet abroad, and Lawrence at your feet at home, what could I possibly want more?"

"You will wake up one day and find Lawrence gone, and the others rapidly getting tired of stooping."

"I don't care--and Lawrence would have to come back."

"That wouldn't be much good if he were married."

"Married!--Lawrence married!" and a ringing laugh sounded through the room. "Why, he'd never have the energy to propose, much less be bothered to get fixed up. He'll just lounge about in easy-chairs all his life, smiling his cynical old smile, and rousing himself occasionally to make cutting speeches. The only way to marry Lawrence would be to propose yourself, and arrange everything, because he'd give in rather than have the bother of refusing. That's how it will probably end, and I shall take pity on him and be the victim. I shall say, 'Wake up, Lawrie, you've got to marry me,' and I shall have the licence all ready and drag him off then and there."

"Who did you say would be the victim!" he asked.

The butler entered with a letter, and, after hastily reading it, Mrs Carew explained that she must send an answer that evening, and excusing herself to Lawrence went out, leaving the young folks alone. Gwendoline seated herself on the arm of a chair near him and commenced a running conversation.

"How did you like that photograph I sent you?" she asked presently. "I don't believe you ever had the manners to write and thank me."

"If I didn't it was because I knew I should be seeing you so soon."

"Well, how did you like it? You don't seem inclined to go into raptures over it, as you ought."

"All the same, I thought it excellent."

"What did you do with yourself in that deadly little Irish hamlet?

Wasn't it perfectly awful? Why didn't you come away sooner?"

"I rather enjoyed it than otherwise."