A Witch of the Hills Volume I Part 16

'I don't think I've really ever spoken so ungratefully as that about dear old Ballater. It's quite true that I should like to see a little more of the big world outside some day, but I think I could be content to hear what you care to tell me about it for a year or two longer first. The fact is, Mr. Maude,' she went on, looking up at me with an altogether irresistible smile of affection and sympathy, 'I could make up my mind to leave the hills, but I can't make up my mind to leave you.'

What an opening! I began to s.h.i.+ver and quake and to give signs of such unmistakable nervousness that Babiole evidently thought I was going to be taken with a fit of some sort. She looked helplessly around, and I gave a laugh like a schoolboy who comes too early to his first ball.

'I'm not ill, Babiole; I have something to say to you.'

Upon this she became nearly as much disturbed as I, and the colour left her sensitive face, as she sat mutely down on the tree-trunk again to hear me.

'I--don't want you to--go away--either--Babiole,' I jerked out slowly and unsteadily. 'You are very young, and I think you can afford to wait before seeing the world,--if you are not tired of this place and the people in it. Everybody here likes you, I may say, loves you; and, at any rate, if the life is not very exciting, it has no great cares.

But your father, who does not know us so well as you do, is reluctant to leave you here without some sort of--of formal guarantee for your safety.' Babiole looked up at me from time to time in bewildered expectancy of something new and awful.

'Safety!' she echoed in an amazed whisper.

'Yes. Girls, when they grow to your age, must have a--a responsible guardian, you know. How old are you?'

'I shall be sixteen in July.'

'Well, you see, in a few years you will be old enough to be married, and your father is naturally anxious to see you well provided for: established, you know, settled--in fact, married.'

Babiole was growing calmer. On reflection, of course there was nothing so alarming in the mention of a woman's natural end as to justify the horror which one is accustomed to consider maidenly; but I was surprised at the time to find that she listened to me so quietly. I thought it would have helped me more if she had s.h.i.+ed at the subject, so to speak; some little show of emotion of one kind or another would have spurred me on to make a better business of the whole thing than I was doing. Her eyes, instead of being raised from time to time inquiringly to mine, were now fixed on the last faint glow of sunlight behind the hills; but she said nothing, and I had to go on.

'He is so bent upon it, in fact, that he says that, young as you are, he will only let you remain here longer on one condition.'

She looked up quickly, with a change of expression which I took for that of vague apprehension.

'What condition?'

'You must be engaged--affianced--to some one he approves of before he leaves you.'

Babiole began to laugh. 'But papa must know that that is ridiculous. I am not a princess, to make so much fuss about. Besides, I am old enough, mamma says, to stay with her if I like.'

'We can't complain of your father for thinking so much of you. And there is a very simple way of satisfying him, if you really do care to stay any longer at the old cottage. Remember, your father could easily persuade your mother to go away with him if he were bent on having you; and then the old life for her would begin again.'

The girl rose to her feet in great excitement.

'What is the simple way?'

'You can become engaged to me.'

I had not prepared her in the least, after all. She did not start or speak, but I could see by her face that she was utterly surprised. I was afraid of a hasty refusal, and now screwed up to the pitch of daring, I hurried on without further hesitation.

'You know, Babiole, I am not asking you to marry me now, or at any future time. That must be for a handsomer, more das.h.i.+ng fellow than I.

But I want you to understand that I am your guardian up to the time when the das.h.i.+ng young fellow turns up; and till then we will be just as we have always been. You understand, child, that there is to be no binding tie on you at all, nothing new except the understanding that I am answerable to your father for your safety and happiness. Now, are you willing to have me?'

I tried to put the question as a joke, but I was much moved.

She put her hand into mine without at first answering, but her eyes were full of tears before I had ended.

'I will do whatever you wish, now and always, Mr. Maude,' she said so sweetly, so softly, that at once I began to realise the peril to myself of what I had done, as a great yearning seized me to draw the little creature into my arms, and tell her what a poor chance it was that she would ever find among the fair-featured sons of men a slave so docile as I would be for just the right to cherish her.

I wish I had, now.

Then, however, I only said, 'That's right,' in a strangled voice; and we began to go down the hill together. But I discovered that this explanation, which was to have been so small and simple a thing, had already changed in some degree the character of our intercourse.

Babiole gave me her hand to help her down, as freely and simply as she had often done before; but it seemed to me now that it was the hand of a fair young woman, instead of the hand of a child. It was some change in the girl herself, and not in me, I felt sure, for I had been fully conscious of my own love and my own longings ever since, on my return from Norway, I had found her still with the sweet flower-face, but with the form and shy proud manner of a budding woman. I considered this phenomenon as we crossed the wild bare slope beneath the fir-trees, and as we found our way through the growing darkness of the oak branches, with the silver water s.h.i.+ning before us in the distance, and the mist gathering about us as we went down. There was no touch of coquetry about her manner whereby I could take courage, but a very pretty gravity which seemed to denote that even such a poor thing as a temporary and make-believe engagement to marry demanded that one should put away childish things and talk about the affairs of the nation.

We both enjoyed that walk back to Larkhall very much; she, because of the delicious new sense of importance which our secret understanding gave her; I, because there was now a link, however frail, between us, and because I was already deep enough in the mire to feel that there was but a maimed poor creature in my place when she was out of my sight. It was dark when we got into the drive, and Mr. and Mrs. Ellmer were both about, peering into bushes, and calling their daughter in a futile way, rather to fill up the time when their _tete-a-tete_ palled, than because they really expected to find her under a rhododendron or a laurel.

'I told you she was all right,' said the lady sharply, as we came up.

'Aha! Where have you been?' asked her husband with ponderous roguery.

'On Craigendarroch, papa,' answered Babiole simply, letting her arm remain in mine, this being the straightforward way I had chosen of making known the result of our meeting.

Mrs. Ellmer was eager to break up the party, and insisted that Babiole's boots must be wet, and that she ought to come and change them. But the artist had something to say first.

'She won't catch cold. She's been too well employed, haven't you, Bab?' he asked, seizing her by the arm, with a laugh that set her blus.h.i.+ng.

I hastened to put a stop to this inquisition.

'She will tell you all about it presently. I think she had better go with her mother now, while I speak to you, Mr. Ellmer.'

He let her go, being in high good humour, consequent upon the discovery and appropriation of some whisky in his wife's cupboard. I told him that his daughter had consented to become engaged to me, and a.s.sured him that I would do my best to make her happy. He grew a little maudlin over the hards.h.i.+p of parting with an only daughter, which, though rather far-fetched, was to be expected; but he was genuinely glad that she was well provided for, and took care to point out to me with some shrewdness that his pride in his daughter was perfectly disinterested, as he had been so long a waif and stray upon the world that the world was considered by his relations as bound to support him, even if he had not been, as he was, too proud to accept from any man more than a mount when he was footsore, or a drink when he was thirsty.

I began to feel quite sorry for the poor beggar, and the feeling was increased later, in spite of his causing me to pa.s.s a most uncomfortable evening. They all came in to see me after dinner. Mr.

Ellmer watched Babiole about with great pride, tried her voice at the piano, on which he performed with some taste, and declared that it was good enough for grand opera. On the other hand he missed no opportunity of snubbing his wife with ferocity, begged her not to skip, and advised her to leave her juvenile ways to her daughter. Poor Babiole spent the evening in torture. At each word of extravagant praise to herself she blushed uncomfortably; at every unkind speech to her mother the tears came to her eyes. In the climax of her misery I bore a most unwilling share.

I was bidding them all good-night on the doorstep, and was shaking hands with Babiole, when Mr. Ellmer, who had several times during the evening disconcerted us both by tactless reference to the supposed excited state of our feelings, said jocularly, that that was not the way sweethearts parted when he was young. Ready to satisfy him, but afraid to offend or frighten Babiole, I laughed awkwardly and hesitated, while the young girl blushed and tried, for the first time, to withdraw her hand from mine.

'Don't be affected, Bab,' said her father roughly.

I would have let her go, but at the sharp words she s.h.i.+vered, and put up her face with a sob of sensitive terror to mine. I stooped and kissed her, and if she shrank from the touch of my trembling lips, or the contact of my hideous face with her fair cheek, at least she felt none of the burning bitterness which seemed to turn my very heart to gall, and the caress of my hungry lips into a sting. For the remembrance of the last fair girl I had kissed, of the languid indifference which had left her cold to my devotion, rushed into my brain and gave added venom to this second and more severe misfortune.

She drew away from me with a new timidity, and ran down the steps after her mother, while Mr. Ellmer smoked a last cigar with me in the garden, and called upon me to condole with him, which, in the disturbed state of thought and feeling I was in, I was ready enough to do. For when he pitifully dilated on the life his acid-tempered wife had led him, on the coldness with which she had always repelled instead of encouraged him, on the martyr-like airs with which she had received his every attempt to reform, I felt that I was ready to side with the most worthless man living against the most worthy woman, and listened sympathetically; and when he pointed to the dutifully subdued fear which shone in his daughter's eyes, in answer to the gaze of his own affection, I listened in silence to his cynical conclusion:--

'Women, they make you pay by the nose either way, sir. If they're not honest, they take it out of your pocket; if they're honest, they take it out of your heart. But rob you, one way or another, they all will to the end.'

And he went off to the cottage in a meek and maudlin manner, which made his subsequent conduct a most bewildering surprise. For, on the following morning, Mrs. Ellmer was not to be seen, and, on her next appearance in public some evenings later, it was evident that her husband had made a forcible appeal to her memory of old times by giving her a black eye. In the meantime Babiole was wild, shy and unapproachable by either her father or me. This state of affairs being untenable, and his wife's very small provision of whisky exhausted, Mr. Ellmer in the course of the afternoon took a dispirited farewell of us, armed with a note to the stationmaster at Aberdeen, which I explained would obtain him a free railway-pa.s.s to London. He thanked me for my courtesy, but was by no means disarmed by it. In the midst of a sentimental leave-taking, he suddenly flashed up into ferocity as I reminded him that his wife and daughter were well and safe with each other, which must be some comfort in the prolonged absence from them which the claims of Art forced upon him.

'Well and safe!' he repeated, his face resuming the brutal lowering look which had, under the amenities of social intercourse, sunk into a placid animal contentment. 'Yes, I should hope so. For I can tell you it would be a bad time for those who had anything to do with it when my little girl was anything else but well and safe.'

The man was in earnest,--genuine brutal earnest. Without again offering me his hand, and with merely a nod by way of last salutation, he left me in the study, where we had been holding this last interview, with impulsive abruptness. I sat down and looked at the fire, glad the man was gone, and thinking no more of him, but of his fair little daughter, and of the best means of effacing the uncomfortable impression made by this violent and unwelcome irruption into our old harmonious intercourse.

I had been occupied thus about ten minutes, disturbed by no sound but the das.h.i.+ng of the rain of a sharp April shower against the windows, when the hall-door was pushed open again, and the hoa.r.s.e gruff voice I had hoped to hear no more broke upon my unwilling ears again.

'Come, no nonsense, aren't you safe with your own father?' I heard Mr.

Ellmer say angrily, to the accompaniment of plaintive pleadings and protests from Babiole, whom, the next moment, he dragged in before me.

He had not waited for her to put on a hat, but had thrown over her head her mother's mackintosh, which he now pulled off, leaving her pretty brown hair tumbling in disorder about her eyes. She was pitifully shy and unhappy, poor child, and she shrank back with crimson cheeks as her father drew her arm firmly through his, and brought her close up to me as I stood, in great anger and perturbation, on the hearthrug.

'Mr. Maude,' he said, 'you will excuse a father's solicitude.'