That Unfortunate Marriage Volume Ii Part 17

"But, now, did he not administer an admirable rebuke to Theodore Bransby?"

"Never mind Theodore. Let us talk about more interesting things."

"What _can_ be more interesting?" asked May, laughing.

"Ourselves." As she remained silent, he went on, "Do you know that we have not had one opportunity for a quiet talk together since I got this engagement?"

"Haven't we?"

"Ah! you don't remember so accurately as I do. But that was not to be expected. Take my arm."

She obeyed as simply as a child. She had been drawing on her gloves when they left Garnet Lodge, but the operation had not been completed, and it chanced that the hand next to Owen was ungloved. She laid her fingers, which gleamed snow-white in the moonlight, on his sleeve.

"You think I have done right in taking this employment?" he said.

"Quite right." She turned her young face, and looked at him with a sweet fervour of sympathy and approval.

Owen raised the white, slender fingers to his lips, and then, replacing them on his arm, laid his own warm, strong hand over them with a gentle pressure. "You know why I did so, don't you, darling?" he said.

"Yes, Owen," was the answer, given in a shy whisper, but with innocent frankness.

"My own dear love!" he exclaimed, pressing her arm strongly and suddenly to his side. "There is no one like you in the world. Look at me, May.

Let me see your sweet, honest eyes."

He caught her two hands in both his, and they stood for a moment at arm's length, facing each other, and holding hands like two children.

The moonlight shone full on the young girl's fair face, and glittered on the bright tear-drops in her eyes, as she raised them to Owen's.

"What can I do to deserve you?" he said. "But why do I talk of desert?

You are G.o.d's gift, May, and no more to be earned than the blessed suns.h.i.+ne."

He put her arm under his once more, and they paced on again without speaking. But to them the silence was full of voices. It was the silence of a dream. They might have wandered Heaven knows whither had not their feet instinctively carried them along the right path, and they found themselves, almost with a start, arrived at the white palings in front of Jessamine Cottage.

"We must tell granny, mustn't we?" said May, looking up at Owen, with a delicious sense of implicit reliance on him.

"Yes; but I am terribly afraid. I hope she will not be angry."

"Angry! How can you think so? Granny is fond of you."

"But she is fonder of _you_, and she knows your value, although, thank G.o.d, you don't! If you did, what chance should I have had? You know how poor I am--not quite penniless, but very poor."

"Not so poor as I, since I am really and truly quite penniless; but I don't mind that, if you don't."

Owen felt a desperate temptation to fold her in his arms and beseech her to marry him to-morrow, throwing prudence and pounds sterling to the winds. But the ardour of a genuine pa.s.sion purifies the n.o.bler soul, as fire purifies the n.o.bler metal, and burns away the dross of self. He answered gravely--

"Our positions are very different, darling. I hope I have not done wrong to tell you how dear you are to me?"

"I think it would have been unkind and cruel to go away without telling me," she answered bravely, though the sound of the words as she said them brought the hot colour into her cheeks.

"Thank you, dearest; that is the best comfort I could have, if I may dare to believe it. But it does seem so wonderful that you should care for me!"

The contemplation of this wonder might have occupied them both for an indefinite time but that they saw a light begin to s.h.i.+ne through the fanlight of the little entrance-hall of Jessamine Cottage. In the stillness of the night the sound of their voices, subdued though they were, had reached the ears of Mrs. Dobbs. She presently opened the door, and stood looking at them as they hurried up the garden path.

"Oh, granny dear, I'm afraid I'm late!" said May. "I did not guess that you were sitting up for me."

"Martha had a touch of her rheumatism, so I sent her to bed. I did not mind waiting. I suppose Miss Piper's maid couldn't come with you? Was that it?" asked Mrs. Dobbs.

She lingered at the open door, expecting Owen to say "Good-night." But May took her grandmother's hand and pulled her into the house, while he followed them. When they reached the lamp-lighted parlour, May, still holding her grandmother's hand with her left hand, stretched out her right to Owen, and gently drew him forward. Then she flung her left arm round the old woman's neck, and kissed her. There was no need for words.

Mrs. Dobbs sank down, white and tremulous, in her great chair, while May nestled beside her on her knees, and tried to place Owen's hand, which she still clasped, in that of her grandmother. But the old woman brusquely drew her hand away.

"You have done wrong," she said, turning to Owen, and scarcely able to control the trembling of her lips. "I didn't think it of you. But men are all alike; selfish, selfish, selfis.h.!.+"

"Why, granny!" exclaimed the girl, breathless with dismay. Then she started up with a flash of impetuous indignation, and stood beside her lover. "He is _not_ selfis.h.!.+" she said vehemently.

"Hush, May! Granny is right," said Owen in a low voice. "I told you that I feared I had done wrong."

Mrs. Dobbs still trembled, but she was struggling to regain her self-command. "You might have waited yet awhile," she said brokenly.

"The child is young! You ought not to have bound her until you see your way more clear."

"Oh, believe me, I will not hold her bound," answered Owen. "I never meant that. I ought not to have spoken yet. I feared so before, and now that you say so, I know it. But I am not wholly selfish."

May had stood listening silently, looking, with wide eyes and parted lips, from one to the other. She now fell on her knees again beside her grandmother, and, clasping the old woman's hands in both her own, cried eagerly--

"But listen! If there was any fault, it was mine. I love him so much!

And he's going away. Think of that, granny! Come here and kneel down beside me, Owen, and let her look you in the face. Think, if he had gone away and never told me! And I so fond of him! You didn't guess how I cried that night when I heard he was to leave England. He has made me so happy--so happy! And we can wait. We don't mind being poor. You said you were fond of him. And he is so good--and I love him so--and you to speak to him so cruelly! Oh, granny, granny!" The tears were pouring down her face, and dropping warm upon the wrinkled hands she held.

Suddenly Mrs. Dobbs opened her arms, and folding May in one of them, laid the other round Owen's shoulder as he knelt before her, and drew them both into her embrace.

"Come along, you two!" she said, sobbing and smiling. "I've got a precious pair of babies to look after in my old age. No more common sense between you than would lie on the point of a needle! No prudence, no worldly wisdom, no regard for society--nothing but love and truth; and what do you suppose _they'll_ fetch in the market?"

After a few minutes she ordered Owen away. "I'm tired," she said. "And we have all had our feelings worked up enough for one while. Go home now, Mr. Rivers--well, well, Owen, then, if it must be!--go home, Owen, and sleep, and dream. And to-morrow, when you're quite awake--broad, staring, work-a-day-world awake, which you're not now, either of you,--come here, and we will talk rationally."

Owen obeyed heroically, and marched off without a word of remonstrance.

But May kept her grandmother listening and talking, long after he had gone. She made Mrs. Dobbs go to bed, and sat by her bedside, pouring out her young heart, joyfully secure of granny's understanding and sympathy, until at length Mrs. Dobbs inexorably commanded her to go to rest.

"Good night, dear, dearest, good, goodest granny!" said May, leaning down to kiss her grandmother's broad, furrowed brow. "Only this one last--very last--word! Do you know, I am very hopeful about Owen's future, because I am sure that Mr. Bragg has taken a great fancy to him, and appreciates him. And Mr. Bragg can make Owen's fortune if he likes."

"Mr. Bragg," murmured Mrs. Dobbs, turning her head on her pillow. "Ah, _there's_ a nice kettle of fis.h.!.+ I'm as big a baby as the children, for up to this very instant I'd clean forgotten all about Mr. Bragg!"

CHAPTER XII.

Before they parted Mrs. Dobbs had arranged with Owen that he should come and have an interview with her at ten o'clock the following morning. But as she desired to speak with him privately, she resolved to go to his lodgings early enough to catch him before he should leave home.

She found Owen already at his writing-desk, and, as he turned a startled face on her, briefly a.s.sured him that all was well with May.

"But I must have a private talk with you," she said. "And I can't get that in my own house, without fussing and making mysteries."