Leonore Stubbs Part 15

Furthermore, it was at Mrs. Purcell's instigation that the shooting visits were prolonged beyond their usual limits on the present occasion.

She got painters into the house, and made them an excuse for bidding Valentine keep away if he could;--and her manner of placing the position before him piqued his vanity, as she knew it would. "If you have no more invitations, return, and I will make a s.h.i.+ft to house you somewhere,"

she wrote;--but of course a popular young man is never short of invitations; and the autumn so wearily dragged through by Leonore, was full of gaiety and variety for her friend.

He had a great time, a glorious time,--and was longing to tell the tale of it to sympathetic ears, when he set forth from his own doorstep on the present mild October afternoon; he heard himself dilating and explaining, introducing names which would lead to inquiries, carelessly referring to charming girls--oh, he foresaw a delightful hour, whether it were in the Abbey drawing-room, or better still with his favourite auditor in a woodland solitude--and now?

Now somehow, he did not care to begin. Was Leo in one of her moods? If so it was no use thinking of anything else; he knew by experience what those moods were. Could he bring her round? Sometimes he could, sometimes not.

Was she really pleased to see him back, or--? He could not endure that "or?"

In short, the whole magnificent house of cards wherewith our young man had so pleased himself an hour before, showed now a flimsy shanty not worth a moment's preservation; and stripped of all importance, reduced to insignificance, afraid of his own voice, he slunk along by Leonore's side.

"Why don't you speak?"--she flung at him at last.

"You--you are so strange!" He faltered, then tried to rally. "What's the matter, Leo? Something is, I'm sure. You might tell me. You know I'm always sorry when you are, and----"

"What makes you think I am?" But she spoke more gently, and emboldened, he proceeded:--

"You did look pleased at first, but directly I spoke, you seemed to fly off at a tangent. I suppose I said something rotten, I often do--but you might have known I didn't mean it."

"It was not what you _said_." She paused.

"What was it then?"

"You look--every one looks--so happy and content--so bursting with prosperity, so supremely filled with--oh, can't you see, can't you see, that I'm alone and miserable, and different? When you pretended to admire me just now----"

"Pretended? I didn't pretend!" indignantly.

"You said I looked 'uncommonly fit'."

"So you did,--so you do."

"And who cares? What's the good of it? If it signified a jot to any single human being how I looked----"

"Leo! _you know I care!_"

She had done it, she had provoked it. If she had taken a chisel in her hand and dug out the admission by bodily force, she could not have been more directly responsible than she now was--and yet she stopped short startled.

It was but for a moment however. "You?" she cried, "you could hardly say less than that, considering it was such a direct fish for a compliment,--no,--no, Val; do be quiet and let me speak,--what I mean is that really, _really_, you know, I am most awfully down in my luck, and I don't see the slightest prospect of anything better. I had hoped that somehow a way would open----"

"It would, if you would marry me."

"Marry you? Nonsense!"

"Good gracious, Leo! _Nonsense?_"

"Of course. Can't you see I'm in earnest, and talk rationally for once?"

"Hang it all, am I not talking rationally, as rationally as ever I did in my life?"

"That's not saying much. You needn't be affronted, it's an honour for you to have me talk to you like this."

"Is it though? I don't see it--I think you are beastly unfair. I do think that." And he pulled out his handkerchief and blew his nose by way of protest. "Just now you were whimpering because you had no one to care for you,--and I believe you said it just to get me to say _I_ did."

Suddenly--"It was a shabby trick, Leo; and then to shut me up like that, when I only meant to do my best for you!"

"Be quiet, be quiet." Despite a twinge of conscience, Leo held her own stoutly. "No one but you would ever have thought of such a thing."

"That's all you know about it. My grandmother did. There!"

"You spoke to her, I suppose?"

"Not I. _She_ put _me_ up to it. Honour bright, she did. I daresay I should have thought of it for myself," continued Val, quickly, "but I hadn't, till she did. She was always praising you, and saying how pretty you were, and what a bad business your marriage was. I mean--I mean----"

"Don't get fl.u.s.tered, Val. You know we have agreed always to be straight with each other. I can quite understand Mrs. Purcell's not approving my marriage."

"But she was awfully sorry for you, you know when;" he nodded significantly; "and she told me to make friends and try and cheer you up, and then----"

"Then?"

"A fellow couldn't help seeing what she was thinking of. She had it in her mind all the time. You trust me. I'm just about as cute as you make 'em when it comes to my gran. I know what she's driving at. All about your being so sweet, and that. She never used to call you sweet; now, did she? And I remember how she used to be down on you for being so untidy and having your hair all about your ears; and she called it red then--but it's auburn now." He chuckled self-appreciatively, and she laughed outright; but this sobered him.

"Don't you go and laugh at me, Leo."

"I'm not laughing at you--now. Go on; tell me more; what else did your gran say?"

"She said--but you won't let it out?"

"No--no."

"She said it would be an awfully good thing for me if I could hitch up with--no, she didn't say that. At least," he reflected, "I don't think it was about _you_ she said that."

"There's some one else, then?"

"Oh, bless you, yes. There are heaps of girls,--but _I_ don't care for any of them," said Val, loftily. "Some of those I met at houses when I was away were awfully nice, though; they were, really."

"I daresay. What do you want with me, then?"

"Why, I've always been fond of you, Leo. You know I have. And I don't think you should call it 'nonsense'." Suddenly he reverted to his grievance: "It makes a fool of a fellow to--to treat a proposal in that sort of way."

"It wasn't a real proposal, Val. You just said it for something to say."

"I didn't. What an idea! I told gran this morning--she was asking who I'd met and all that--and I just told her straight, that none of them could hold a candle to you." He paused and continued: "Though there were some dashers among them too; and I daresay some men would have said Nelly Brackenbury was better looking----"

"So Nelly Brackenbury was the one?"

"Rather. Simply splendid. She would have made two of you, Leo."

"Maud's style, perhaps?"