Hildegarde's Harvest Part 15

"She thought nothing of the sort," said Hildegarde. "She is the most modest, unselfish creature in the world, and she thought we would rather be without her. I know her!"

"Well, I suppose she was right," yet Hildegarde fancied a shade of regret in his hearty tone; "anyhow, she is a brick, isn't she?"

"How would you define a brick?" asked Hildegarde, demurely.

"A musician," said Jack, emphatically; "and a--a good fel--Oh, well, you know what I mean, Hilda! And isn't it pretty hard, now, when a fellow has been away two years, that he should come back and have the girl of his heart begin to tease him within five minutes? Oh, I say, Hilda, how well you're looking! You have grown prettier; I didn't suppose you could grow prettier. Would you mind shaking hands again?"

Hildegarde held out her hand gladly, and laughed and blushed when her cousin raised it to his lips in the graceful European fas.h.i.+on.

"You have learned something besides violin-playing, Jack," she said. "If any one had proposed your kissing hands two years ago, what would you have done?"

"Taken to the woods," replied Jack, promptly. "But--well, they all do it there, of course; and I saw the _gnadige Frau_--Frau J.--expected it when I went to dine there, so--so I learned. But all the time, Hilda, I thought I was only learning so that I could kiss your mother's hand,--and yours!"

"Dear lad!" said Hilda. "Mamma will be pleased; she always wishes people would be 'more graceful in their greetings.' Can't you hear her say it?

But why do we stand here, when she is waiting for us in her room? She has rheumatism to-day, so I would not let her come down, poor darling; and here I am keeping you all to myself, like the highwayman I am."

"Yes, I always thought you were cut out for a highwayman," said Jack.

"Come along, then! I have a thousand things to tell you both."

Hand in hand, like happy children, the two ran up-stairs. Mrs. Grahame was waiting with open arms. Indeed, she had been the first to hear the notes of the violin; and her cry--"Hilda! Jack is come! our boy is come!"--had brought Hildegarde flying from the recesses of the linen-closet. Her eyes were full of happy tears; and when Jack bent to kiss her hand, she folded him warmly in her arms, and pressed more than one kiss on his broad forehead.

"My boy!" she said. "My boy has come back to me! Hilda, it is your brother; do you understand? It is as if my little son, who went away so long ago, had been sent back to me."

"Yes, Mother," said Hildegarde, softly. "I know; we both know, Jack and I. Dear Mother, blessed one! let the tears come a little; it will do you good."

They were silent for a little. The two young people pressed close to the elder woman, who felt the years surge up around her like a flood; but there was no bitterness in the waters, only sweet and sacred depths of love and memory. The boy and girl, filled with a pa.s.sionate longing to cheer and comfort her whom they loved so dearly, felt perhaps more pain than she did, for they were too young to have seen the smile on the face of sorrow.

But now Mrs. Grahame was smiling again.

"Dears!" she said. "Dear children! They are such happy tears, you must not mind them. And now they are all gone, and that is enough about me, and too much. Jack, sit down on that stool; draw it close, so that I can see you in the firelight. So! And you are there, Hilda?"

"On the other stool!" said Hildegarde. "Here we are, love, close beside you."

"That is good! And now, Odysseus, let us hear! Mr. Ferrers has the floor."

"He certainly has a good deal of it!" said Jack, looking rather ruefully at his long legs, which did extend a prodigious distance along the hearth-rug.

"What do you think of my having grown two whole inches since I went away? I call it a shame! Uncle Tom measured me with his stick before I had been in the house five minutes; six feet four! It is disgraceful, you know!"

"Dear Colonel Ferrers!" cried Hildegarde. "Isn't he coming soon, to tell us how happy he is? Why, Jack, do you know, he was so funny about you last night! I asked when you were coming, and he quite growled, the dear, and called you irresponsible, and wouldn't tell us a thing."

"Of course he wouldn't! Spoil my surprise, that I had planned so carefully? It is well he did not! But he told me about it, too,--about last night, I mean. He said you would persist in asking questions, and looking straight at him as you asked them, so that his only refuge was in gruffness. Yes, Hilda, he is coming over after tea,--I may stay to tea, mayn't I? He--I thought they wouldn't mind being alone for a bit,--Oh, wait! I haven't come to that yet. Where shall I begin? Come back to Leipsic with me, will you?"

Both ladies signified their willingness to take the voyage at once.

"I have spread the magic carpet!" cried Jack. "Be seated, if you please!

Whisk! Presto! Behold us in Leipsic. _Mesdames_, let me have the honour of presenting you to Herr J,----the greatest living violinist. Herr Professor, these are the people I love best in the world, except two.

Well, you see it is very simple, after all. The Maestro was going on a tour in Russia; was invited to play before the Czar, and all kinds of things. He will be gone all winter; so he said, why should I not come home and see my father and uncle, and talk over plans with them? He--the Maestro--wants me to work for the Royal Medal. It's only given out once in three years, and it's a pretty big thing, but he thinks I would better try for it. I--did I write you about the scholars.h.i.+p I got? No?

Well, I think I did, but it must have been in my last letter, and Uncle Tom thinks my last letters did not get posted, or something. Well, yes; I got a pretty good scholars.h.i.+p, enough to pay my expenses both ways, and leave me a hundred dollars besides."

"Oh, Jack! how splendid!" cried Hildegarde, in delight. "That is pretty glorious, I do think. Wasn't Colonel Ferrers enchanted? Oh! and when can you see your father? Is he still in Virginia? Of course you want to fly to him."

"Not in the least!" replied Jack. "I am coming to that presently. I think that hundred dollars rather went to my head. The first thing I did when I got it was to cable to my father that I was coming on the _Urania_. Then I shut myself up in my room and played a bit, and then I turned somersaults till my head was like--like an apple dumpling; and then I went shopping."

"Shopping, Jack? I can hardly fancy you shopping."

"Well, I did! I got a pipe for my father,--oh, a beauty!--meerschaum, of course, carved with a head of Schumann, the most perfect likeness!

Hilda, when the smoke comes out of it, you expect to hear it sing the 'Davidsbundler,' one after another. Of course anybody except Schumann would have been ridiculous, but it seems to suit him. Then for Uncle Tom--a pipe is horror to him, of course--I got a walking-stick, ebony, with no end of a Turk's head on it. He hates the Turks so, you know. I knew he would enjoy squeezing it, and rapping it up against things, and he does like it, I think. And then--" the boy began to fumble in his pockets, blus.h.i.+ng with eagerness--"Mrs. Grahame, I--I saw this in a shop, and--it made me think of you. Will you put it somewhere, please, where you will see it now and then, and--and think of me?"

The tiny parcel he held out was wrapped in folds of soft, foreign-looking paper. Mrs. Grahame, opening it, found an exquisite little copy of the Nuremburg Madonna, the sweetest and tenderest figure of motherhood and gracious womanliness.

"My dear boy!" she said, much moved. "What a beautiful, beautiful thing!

Is it really mine? How can I thank you enough?"

"So glad you like it! Is it right, Hilda?"

"Quite right," said Hilda; and they nodded and smiled at each other, while the mother bent over her treasure, absorbed in its beauty.

"And you, Hilda!" said Jack, searching his pockets again. "Do you suppose I have anything for you? Do you really suppose I had time to stop and think about you?"

The boy was in such a glow of happiness, the joy so rippled and shone from him, that Hildegarde could not take her eyes from his face.

"Dear fellow!" she said. "As if I needed anything but just the sight of you, and the sound of your--fiddle! And yet,--oh, Jack! Jack! How could you? How could you _let_ yourself do it?"

Jack had put something into her hands, and was now leaning back in perfect content, watching her face in turn, and delighted with every light that danced over it. The something was a bracelet; a little, s.h.i.+ning garland of stars, each star a cl.u.s.ter of "aquamarine" stones, clear as crystal, with the faintest, most delicate shade of green, hardly seen in the full light. Not a jewel of great value, but as pretty a thing as ever a girl saw.

"Jack!" sighed Hilda again. "How could you? There never was anything so beautiful in the world; that is confessed."

"And the clasp is the moon, you see!" Jack explained, eagerly. "I thought it looked like the Moonlight Sonata, Hilda, and you used to like me to play it, you know; and so I thought--you do like it? Now I am quite happy! Fate has nothing better for me than this. Except one thing!" he added, turning with boyish shyness from Hilda's warm, almost reproachful thanks,--she was hardly reconciled to his spending his hard-earned money on trinkets for her, yet she was genuinely delighted with the exquisite gift, as any right-minded girl would have been.

"There is one thing more!" said Jack. "And I think I am going to have that now. Hark! Is not that a step on the veranda? May he--may they come up here, dear Mrs. Grahame?"

Mrs. Grahame hesitated a moment, glancing at her dainty tea-gown, and then around at the perfection of the pleasant sitting-room.

"Certainly!" she said, heartily. "If you do not think Colonel Ferrers will mind,--such an old friend, and he knows I am not well to-day."

Jack and Hilda flew down-stairs as fast as they had flown up; indeed, Hilda was nearly overthrown by her cousin's impetuous rush.

"I haven't told you yet!" he cried. "Hilda, you guess, don't you? You know what the best of all is to be? He is here! He--here he is!"

He threw open the door. Colonel Ferrers's stalwart form loomed against the pale evening sky, and behind it was a tall, slender figure, stooping somewhat, with a shrinking air like a shy boy.

"Hilda, it is my father!" cried Jack, now at the top of his heaven, and "Hilda, my dear, my brother Raymond!" cried the Colonel, not a whit less pleased. Hilda found her hand taken between two slender, white hands, that trembled a little, as they drew her towards the light.

"My boy's best friend!" said Mr. Ferrers; and Hilda thought that the gentle blue eyes were even kinder than those fierce gray ones of the Colonel's, now twinkling with tears, which he brushed away with furious impatience.

"My boy's kind sister and helper! G.o.d bless you, my dear! I owe you a great debt, which only love can repay. And now take me to your mother. I have not seen her for many a long year."