Lover or Friend Part 94

'Nonsense! You will tell me next that you do not remember asking me to give you a kiss. "I want to kiss you, Mike, because you are so nice and smart." Do you think I shall ever forget that? I lost my heart to you then.'

'You must not expect me to remember those things,' she returned, blus.h.i.+ng like a rose.

'No, darling, I suppose not; you were only a child then. But, all the same, these memories are very sweet to me. You have been my one and only love, and you know that now.'

'Oh, Michael!' And now the gray eyes filled with tears, for these words sounded like a reproach to her.

'You must not misunderstand me,' he returned, shocked at her evident misconception of his words. 'Do you think that I begrudge the love you gave that poor fellow? Some day, when you are my wife, I will tell you all I think on this subject; but not now--not to-night, of all nights, when I know and feel for the first time that my treasure is in my own keeping.'

And then he stopped, and, in rather an agitated voice, begged her that he might not see tears in her dear eyes to-night.

'I did not mean to be foolish,' she returned, in a low voice; 'only, when I think of all you have suffered, and how patient you have been, and how beautifully you bore it all for our sakes, I feel as though I should never make up to you for all you have gone through. Michael'--and here her look was a little wistful--'are you sure that I shall never disappoint you--that what I have to give will content you?'

But his answer fully satisfied her on this point. He was more than content, he said; he needed no a.s.surances of her affection--he would never need them. The first look at her face had told him all he wanted to know.

'I think I can read your very thoughts, Audrey--that I know you better than you know yourself;' and as Michael said this there was a smile upon his face that seemed to baffle her--a smile so penetrating and sweet that it lingered in her memory long afterwards.

And a few minutes later Michael proved the truth of his words. He was showing her the ring that he had chosen--a half-hoop of diamonds of the finest water, and their l.u.s.tre and brilliancy almost dazzled Audrey.

'I remember your love for diamonds,' he said, as he took her hand.

But she did not answer him. She was looking rather sadly at a little gold ring she had always worn.

'Do not take it off!' he said hastily, as he read the tender reluctance in her face. 'Dear Audrey, why should not my diamonds keep company with his ring?' And, as her eyes expressed her grat.i.tude, he slipped the brilliant ring into its place. 'They will soon have to make way for another. The diamonds will make a capital guard.'

But though he evidently expected an answer to this, Audrey made no response, except to remark on the lateness of the hour; and then Michael did consent to adjourn to the drawing-room.

They were eagerly expected and heartily welcomed, and as her father folded her in his arms with a murmured blessing, and she received her mother's tearful congratulations, Audrey felt how truly they appreciated her choice. On this occasion there were no drawbacks, no whispered fear of what Geraldine and her husband might say. Mrs. Ross begged that she might be allowed to carry the good news to Hillside. They were coming up to dinner, and she thought that it was due to them that they should be prepared beforehand; and, as everyone a.s.sented to this, Mrs. Ross started early the next morning on her delightful emba.s.sage.

But she had miscalculated the amount of pleasure that her news would impart. Geraldine cried with joy when she heard the news, and nothing would satisfy her except to put on her bonnet and walk back with her mother to Woodcote.

She interrupted a delightful _tete-a-tete_ between the lovers. Not that either of them minded; for, as Michael sensibly remarked, he expected that they would have plenty of _tete-a-tetes_ in their life, and Audrey was sufficiently fond of her sister to welcome her under any circ.u.mstances.

'How did you think I could wait until the evening?' she said, as she threw her arms round Audrey. 'Oh, my darling, do you know how glad I am about this? And to think that no one ever imagined it would be Michael!'

And then, as he gave her a brotherly kiss, and begged that he, too, might be congratulated, she continued earnestly: 'Yes, indeed; and we have all been as blind and stupid as possible! And yet, when one comes to think of it, you and Audrey are cut out for each other.'

'I was afraid you might say something about the disparity in our ages--five-and-twenty and forty; and actually I have some gray hairs already, Gage.'

'Nonsense!' she returned indignantly. 'I never saw you look younger and better in your life; and as for disparity, as you call it, isn't it just the same between Percival and myself? and can any couple be happier? If you are only as good to Audrey as Percival is to me, she will be the happiest woman in the world!'

It was a pity Mr. Harcourt could not see his wife as she made this speech, for she looked so lovely in her matronly dignity that Michael and Audrey exchanged an admiring glance. But the climax of their success was felt to be reached when Mr. Harcourt arrived that evening.

'You have done the best day's work that ever you did in your life when you said "Yes" to Burnett!' was his first speech to Audrey; and then he had turned very red, and wrung her hand with such violence that it throbbed with pain.

'I think you ought to give her a kiss, Percy,' suggested his wife a little mischievously; for it was well known that Mr. Harcourt objected to any such demonstration, except to his own wife.

'No, thank you,' returned Audrey, stepping back. 'I am quite sure of Percival's sympathy without putting it to such a painful proof.'

'I shall kiss Audrey on her wedding-day,' replied Mr. Harcourt solemnly; 'that is, if her husband will permit me,' with a bow to Michael.

But this remark drove his sister-in-law to the other end of the room, so that she lost a certain straightforward and complimentary speech that gave a great deal of pleasure to Michael, and which he never could be induced to repeat to her.

No one could doubt Audrey's happiness after the first few days of strangeness had worn off, and she had grown used to her new position as Michael's _fiancee_. Michael had been very careful not to scare her at first--he had no wish to bring back the shyness that had made their first evening such a misery to them both--and his forbearance was rewarded when he saw the old frankness and joyousness return, and Audrey became her own sweet self again.

Michael was an ardent lover, but he was not an exacting one: Audrey could have had as much freedom as she needed during their brief engagement, but she had ceased to desire such freedom.

She remembered sometimes with faint, unavoidable regret that Cyril's demonstrativeness had at times wearied her; but she had no such feeling with Michael: when he left her for a few days to complete the purchase of a pretty little property he had secured for their future home in one of the loveliest spots in Surrey, she was as restless during his absence as ever Geraldine had been.

Michael was surprised to find how she had missed him, and how overjoyed she was at his return; but he never told her so, or ever alluded to the mistake that had doomed them both to such misery.

'My innocent darling! how could she know that I loved her, when I never told her so? It was I who would have been to blame if she had married Cyril. G.o.d grant that in that case she might never have found out her mistake; but I do not know. She would always have cared too much for Michael, and he would have found it out in time;' but he kept such thoughts to himself.

Audrey had no objection to offer when Michael pleaded that they should be married early in August. He had waited long enough, she knew, and there was nothing to gain by waiting.

But she had a long talk with her mother and Geraldine about Mollie, whom she still regarded as her special _protegee_.

'Michael has Kester,' she suggested; 'so I daresay he will not mind Mollie sharing our home.'

'You will make a great mistake if you ask him any such question,'

returned Geraldine, in her practical, matter-of-fact way. 'Kester will be at Oxford, and during the long vacation he will join some reading party or other--Michael told me so; but Mollie would want a home all the year round. Why do you not leave her at Woodcote? Mother will be dreadfully dull without you at first, and, of course, I cannot always be with her. You are very fond of Mollie, are you not, mother?'

'She is a dear, good child, and I should love to have her with me,' was Mrs. Ross's reply. 'That is a clever thought of yours, my love, and Michael certainly will want his wife to himself--men always do.'

'If you really think so, mother, and if Mollie does not mind, she shall stay at Woodcote,' was Audrey's reply.

And when Mollie was consulted she proved quite willing to do as they all wished.

'Of course, dear Mrs. Ross will be dull. And I know I should only be in Captain Burnett's way,' argued Mollie, a little tearfully. 'I knew that from the first. I shall miss you dreadfully, Audrey. No one will ever take your place; but I shall feel as though I were helping you somehow.'

'Yes, and then you will pay me long visits, Mollie; and, of course, Michael will often bring me to see mother.'

And this charming prospect, and the promise that she should be Audrey's bridesmaid, speedily consoled Mollie.

Michael had stipulated that their honeymoon should be spent in Scotland, and to Audrey's amus.e.m.e.nt Braemar was the place he finally selected, and he would have the very cottage, or rather cottages, that Dr. Ross had taken for his family.

'We can shut up some of the rooms and only use as many as we want,' he said, when Mrs. Ross had complained of the roominess. 'We are rich people, and can afford it; and as Crauford is to be Audrey's maid, she can come with us and see that things are comfortable. Do you remember that sitting-room, Audrey, and the horse-hair sofa, and the rowan-berries and heather in the big china jars? By the bye, you must have a gray tweed dress and a deerstalker cap, and look as you used to look; and there is the little bridge where Gage and I used to meet you all when you had had a day's outing on the moors. Shall you not love to go there again, Audrey?

And in answer Audrey said 'Yes' rather demurely.

But she was not demure at all when two months afterwards she sat on the little bridge in the sunset, watching the very same ducks dibble with their yellow bills in the brook that trickled so musically over the stones, while Michael stood beside her, lazily throwing in pebbles for Booty's amus.e.m.e.nt; on the contrary, she was laughing and talking with a great deal of animation, and, strange to say, she wore the gray tweed, and the deerstalker cap was on her bright brown hair.

'We have had such a delicious day!' she was saying. 'I think there is nothing, after all, like a Scotch moor. Do look at those ducks, Michael; how angry they are with Booty, and how ridiculous they look waddling over those wet stones!'

'I was thinking of something else,' he replied; and his tone made Audrey look up rather quickly. 'Do you remember your tirade on the subject of single blessedness, my Lady Bountiful, and how freedom outbalanced all the delights of wedded bliss? I recollect we were on the moors then, and Kester was with us, and I took out my pocket-book and wrote down the date. Well, I will be magnanimous and not ask an awkward question. Six weeks of married life is not such a long time, after all.'

But she interrupted him with some impatience:

'Michael, how can you recall such nonsense? But of course you are only doing it to tease me. As though I were not much happier than I was then!'