Uncle Max Part 67

It was only half-past five, and I walked on leisurely. I had not been farther than the garden for three weeks, and the sudden sense of freedom and s.p.a.ce was exhilarating.

It was a lovely morning. A dewy freshness seemed on everything; the birds were singing deliciously; the red curtains were drawn across the windows of the Man and Plough; a few white geese waddled slowly across the green; some brown speckled hens were feeding under the horse-trough; a goat browsing by the roadside looked up, quite startled, as I pa.s.sed him, and b.u.t.ted slowly at me in a reflective manner. There was a scent of sweet-brier, of tall perfumy lilies and spicy carnations from the gardens. I looked at the windows of the houses I pa.s.sed, but the blinds were drawn, and the bees and the flowers were the only waking things there. The village seemed asleep, until I turned the corner, and there, coming out of the vicarage gate, was Uncle Max himself. He was walking along slowly, with his old felt hat in his hand, reading his little Greek Testament as he walked, and the morning sun s.h.i.+ning on his uncovered head and his brown beard.

He did not see me until I was close to him, and then he started, and an expression of fear crossed his face.

'Ursula, my dear, were you coming to the vicarage? Nothing is wrong, I hope?' looking at me anxiously.

'Wrong! what should be wrong on such a morning?' I returned playfully.

'Is it not delicious? The air is like champagne; only champagne never had the scent of those flowers in it. The world is just a big dewy bouquet.

It is good only to be alive on such a morning.'

Max put his Greek Testament in his pocket and regarded me dubiously.

'Were you not coming to meet me, then? It is not a quarter to six yet.

Rather early for an aimless stroll, is it not, my dear?'

'Oh yes, I was coming to meet you,' I returned carelessly. 'I thought you would be at work in the garden. Max, you are eying me suspiciously: you think I have something important to tell you. Now you must not be disappointed; I have very little to say, and I cannot answer questions; but there is one thing, I have found out all you wish to know about Captain Hamilton.'

It was sad to see the quick change in his face,--the sudden cloud that crossed it at the mention of the man whom he regarded as his rival. He did not speak; not a question came from his lips; but he listened as though my next word might be the death-warrant to his hopes.

'Max, do not look like that: there is no cause for fear. It is a great secret, and you must never speak of it, even to me,--but Lady Betty is engaged to her cousin Claude.'

For a moment he stared at me incredulously. 'Impossible! you must have been deceived,' I heard him mutter.

'On the contrary, I leave other people to be duped,' was my somewhat cool answer. 'You need not doubt my news: Gladys is my informant: only, as I have just told you, it is a great secret. Mr. Hamilton is not to know yet, and Gladys writes most of the letters. Poor little Lady Betty is in constant terror that she will be found out, and they are waiting until Captain Hamilton has promotion and comes home in November.'

He had not lost one word that I said: as he stood there, bareheaded, in the morning suns.h.i.+ne that was tingeing his beard with gold, I heard his low, fervent 'Thank G.o.d! then it was not that;' but when he turned to me his face was radiant, his eyes bright and vivid; there was renewed hope and energy in his aspect.

'Ursula, you have come like the dove with the olive-branch. Is this really true? It was good of you to come and tell me this.'

'I do not see the goodness, Max.'

'Well, perhaps not; but you have made me your debtor. I like to owe this to you,--my first gleam of hope. Now, you must tell me one thing. Does Miss Darrell know of this engagement?'

'She does.'

'Stop a moment: I feel myself getting confused here. I am to ask no questions: you can tell me nothing more. But I must make this clear to myself: How long has she known, Ursula? a day? a week?'

'Suppose you subst.i.tute the word months,' I observed scornfully. 'I know no dates, but Miss Darrell has most certainly been acquainted with her cousin's engagement for months.'

'Oh, this is worse than I thought,' he returned, in a troubled tone.

'This is almost too terrible to believe. She has known all I suffered on that man's account, and yet she never undeceived me. Can women be so cruel? Why did she not come to me and say frankly, "I have made a mistake; I have unintentionally misled you: it is Lady Betty, not Gladys, who is in love with her cousin"? Good heavens! to leave me in this ignorance, and never to say the word that would put me out of my misery!'

I was silent, though silence was a torture to me. Even, now the extent of Miss Darrell's duplicity had not clearly dawned on him. He complained that she had left him to suffer through ignorance of the truth; but the idea had not yet entered his mind that possibly she had deceived him from the first. 'Oh, the stupidity and slowness of these honourable men where a woman is concerned!' I groaned to myself; but my promise to Gladys kept me silent.

'It was too bad of her, was it not?' he said, appealing to me for sympathy; but I turned a deaf ear to this.

'Max, confess that you were wrong not to have taken my advice and gone down to Bournemouth: you might have spared yourself months of suspense.'

'Do you mean--' And then he reddened and stroked his beard nervously; but I finished his sentence for him: he should not escape what I had to say to him.

'It is so much easier to come to an understanding face to face; but you would not take my advice, and the opportunity is gone. Gladys is in the turret-room: you could not gain admittance to her without difficulty: what you have to say must be said by letter; but you might trust that letter to me, Max.'

He understood me in a moment. I could see the quick look of joy in his eyes. I had not betrayed Gladys, I had adhered strictly to my word that I would only speak of Lady Betty's engagement; and with his usual delicacy Max had put no awkward questions to me: he had respected my scruples, and kept his burning curiosity to himself. But he would not have been a man if he had not read some deeper meaning under my silence: he told me afterwards that the happy look in my eyes told him the truth.

So he merely said very quietly, 'You were right, and I was wrong, Ursula: I own my fault. But I will write now: I owe Miss Hamilton some explanation. When the letter is ready, how am I to put it into your hands?'

'Oh,' I answered in a matter-of-fact way, as though we were speaking of some ordinary note, and it was not an offer of marriage from a penitent lover, 'when you have finished talking to Miss Darrell,--you will enjoy her conversation, I am sure, Max; it will be both pleasant and profitable,--you might mention casually that there was something you wanted to say to your niece Ursula, and would she kindly ask that young person to step down to you for a minute? and then, you see, that little bit of business will be done.'

'Yes, I see; but--' but here Max hesitated--'but the answer, Ursula?'

'Oh, the answer!' in an off-hand manner; 'you must not be looking for that yet. My patient must not be hurried or flurried: you must give her plenty of time. In a day or two--well, perhaps, I might find an early stroll conducive to my health; these mornings are so beautiful; and--Nonsense, Max! I would do more than this for you'; for quiet, undemonstrative Max had actually taken my hand and lifted it to his lips in token of his grat.i.tude.

After this we walked back in the direction of Gladwyn, and nothing more was said about the letter. We listened to the rooks cawing from the elms, and we stood and watched a lark rising from the long meadow before Maplehurst and singing as though its little throat would burst with its concentrated ecstasy of song; and when I asked Max if he did not think the world more beautiful than usual that morning, he smiled, and suddenly quoted Tennyson's lines, in a voice musical with happiness:

'All the land in flowery squares, Beneath a broad and equal-flowing wind, Smelt of the coming summer, as one large cloud Drew downward; but all else of heaven was pure Up to the sun, and May from verge to verge, And May with me from heel to heel.'

'Yes, but, Max, it is July now. The air is too mellow for spring. Your quotation is not quite apt.'

'Oh, you are realistic; but it fits well enough. Do you not remember how the poem goes on?

"The garden stretches southward. In the midst A cedar spread its dark-green layers of shrub.

The garden-gla.s.ses shone, and momently The twinkling laurel scattered silver lights."

I always think of Gladwyn when I read that description.'

I laughed mischievously: 'I am sorry to leave you just as you are in a poetical vein; but I must positively go in. Good-bye, Max,' I felt I had lingered a little too long when I saw the blinds raised in Mr. Hamilton's study. But apparently the room was empty. I sauntered past it leisurely, and walked down the asphalt path. On my return I picked one or two roses, wet with dew. As I raised my head from gathering them I saw Leah standing at the side door watching me.

'Oh, it was you,' she grumbled. 'I thought one of those girls had left the door unlocked. A pretty piece of carelessness that would have been to reach the master's ears! You are out early, ma'am.'

I was somewhat surprised at these remarks, for Leah had made a point of always pa.s.sing me in sullen silence since I had refused her admittance into the sick-room. Her manner was hardly civil now, but I thought it best to answer her pleasantly.

'Yes, Leah, I have taken my stroll early. It was very warm last night, and I did not sleep well. There is nothing so refres.h.i.+ng as a morning walk after a bad night. I am going to take these roses to Miss Gladys.'

But she tossed her head and muttered something about people being mighty pleasant all of a sudden. And, seeing her in this mood, I walked away.

She was a bad-tempered, coa.r.s.e-natured woman, and I could not understand why Mr. Hamilton seemed so blind to her defects. 'I suppose he never sees her; that is one reason,' I thought, as I carried up my roses.

Gladys was still asleep. I had finished my breakfast, and had helped Chatty arrange the turret-room for the day, when I heard the long-drawn sigh that often preluded Gladys's waking. I hastened to her side, and found her leaning on her elbow looking at my roses.

'They used to grow in the vicarage garden,' she said wistfully. 'Dark crimson ones like these. I have been dreaming.' And then she stopped and flung herself back wearily on her pillow. 'Why must one ever wake from such dreams?' she finished, with the old hopeless ring in her voice.

'What was the dream, dear?' I asked, smoothing her hair caressingly. It was fine, soft hair, like an infant's, and its pale gold tint, without much colour or gloss, always reminded me of baby hair. I have heard people find fault with it. But when it was unbound and streaming in wavy ma.s.ses over her shoulders it was singularly beautiful. She used to laugh sometimes at my admiration of her straw-coloured tresses, or lint-white locks, as she called them. But indeed there was no tint that quite described the colour of Gladys's hair.

'Oh, I was walking in some fool's paradise or other. There were roses in it like these. Well, another blue day is dawning, Ursula, and has to be lived through somehow. Will you help me to get up now?' But, though she tried after this to talk as usual, I could see the old restlessness was on her. A sort of feverish reaction had set in. She could settle to nothing, take pleasure in nothing; and I was not surprised that Mr.

Hamilton grumbled a little when he paid his morning visit.

'How is this? You are not quite so comfortable to-day, Gladys,' he asked, in a dissatisfied tone. 'Is your head aching again?'

She reluctantly pleaded guilty to the headache. Not that it was much, she a.s.sured him; but I interrupted her.