Hard Cash Part 15

"Miss Dodd, I never said the fairest of her s.e.x. I said the loveliest."

"Oh, that alters the case entirely," said Julia, whose spirits were mounting with the lights and music, and Alfred's company; "so now come and be reconciled to the best and wisest of her s.e.x; ay, and the beautifullest, if you but knew her sweet, dear, darling face as I do.

There she is; let us fly."

"Mamma, here is a penitent for you, real or feigned, I don't know which."

"Real, Mrs. Dodd," said Alfred. "I had no right to disobey you and risk a scene. You served me right by abandoning me; I feel the rebuke and its justice. Let me hope your vengeance will go no further."

Mrs. Dodd smiled at the grandiloquence of youth, and told him he had mistaken her character. "I saw I had acquired a generous, hot-headed ally, who was bent on doing battle with insects; so I withdrew; but so I should at Waterloo, or anywhere else where people put themselves in a pa.s.sion."

The band struck up again.

"Ah!" said Julia, "and I promised you this dance; but it is a waltz and my guardian angel objects to the _valse a deux temps._"

"Decidedly. Should all the mothers in England permit their daughters to romp and wrestle in public, and call it waltzing, I must stand firm till they return to their senses."

Julia looked at Alfred despondently. He took his cue and said with a smile, "Well, perhaps it is a little rompy; a donkey's gallop and then twirl her like a mop."

"Since you admit that, perhaps you can waltz properly?" said Mrs. Dodd.

Alfred said he ought; he had given his whole soul to it in Germany last Long.

"Then I can have the pleasure of dropping the tyrant. Away with you both while there is room to circulate."

Alfred took his partner delicately; they made just two catlike steps forward, and melted into the old-fas.h.i.+oned waltz.

It was an exquisite moment. To most young people Love comes after a great deal of waltzing. But this pair brought the awakened tenderness and trembling sensibilities of two burning hearts to this their first intoxicating whirl. To them, therefore, everything was an event, everything was a thrill--the first meeting and timid pressure of their hands, the first delicate enfolding of her supple waist by his strong arm but trembling hand, the delightful unison of their unerring feet, the movement, the music, the soft delicious whirl, her cool breath saluting his neck, his ardent but now liquid eyes seeking hers tenderly, and drinking them deep, hers that now and then sipped his so sweetly--all these were new and separate joys, that linked themselves in one soft delirium of bliss. It was not a waltz it was an Ecstasy.

Starting almost alone, this peerless pair danced a gauntlet. On each side admiration and detraction buzzed all the time.

"Beautiful! They are turning in the air."

"Quite gone by. That's how the old fogies dance."

Chorus of shallow males: "How well she waltzes."

Chorus of shallow females: "How well he waltzes."

But they noted neither praise nor detraction: they saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing, but themselves and the other music, till two valsers _a deux temps_ plunged into them. Thus smartly reminded they had not earth all to themselves, they laughed good-humouredly and paused.

"Ah! I am happy!" gushed from Julia. She hushed at herself, and said severely, "You dance very well, sir." This was said to justify her unguarded admission, and did, after a fas.h.i.+on. "I think it is time to go to mamma," said she demurely.

"So soon? And I had so much to say to you."

"Oh, very well. I am all attention."

The sudden facility offered set Alfred stammering a little. "I wanted to apologise to you for something--you are so good you seem to have forgotten it--but I dare not hope that--I mean at Henley--when the beauty of your character, and your goodness, so overpowered me, that a fatal impulse----"

"What do you mean, sir?" said Julia, looking him full in the face, like an offended lion, while, with true feminine and Julian inconsistency her bosom fluttered like a dove. "I never exchanged one word with you in my life before to-day; and I never shall again if you pretend the contrary."

Alfred stood stupified, and looked at her in piteous amazement.

"I value your acquaintance highly, Mr. Hardie, now I have made it, as acquaintances are made; but please to observe, I never saw you before--scarcely; not even in church."

"As you please," said he, recovering his wits in part. "What you say I'll swear to."

"Then I say, never remind a lady of what you ought to wish her to forget."

"I was a fool, and you are an angel of tact and goodness."

"Oh, now I am sure it is time to join mamma," said she in the driest, drollest way. _"Valsons._"

They waltzed down to Mrs. Dodd, exchanging hearts at every turn, and they took a good many in the s.p.a.ce of a round table, for in truth both were equally loth to part.

At two o'clock Mrs. Dodd resumed common-place views of a daughter's health, and rose to go.

Her fly had played her false, and, being our island home, it rained buckets. Alfred ran, before they could stop him, and caught a fly. He was dripping. Mrs. Dodd expressed her regrets; he told her it did not matter; for him the ball was now over, the flowers faded, and the lights darkness visible.

"The extravagance of these children!" said Mrs. Dodd to Julia, with a smile, as soon as he was out of hearing. Julia made no reply.

Next day she was at evening church: the congregation was very spa.r.s.e.

The first glance revealed Alfred Hardie standing in the very next pew. He wore a calm front of conscious rect.i.tude; under which peeped sheep-faced misgivings as to the result of this advance; for, like all true lovers, he was half impudence, half timidity; and both on the grand scale.

Now Julia in a ball-room was one creature, another in church. After the first surprise, which sent the blood for a moment to her cheek, she found he had come without a prayer-book. She looked sadly and half reproachfully at him; then put her white hand calmly over the wooden part.i.tion, and made him read with her out of her book. She shared her hymn-book with him, too, and sang her Maker's praise modestly and soberly, but earnestly, and quite undisturbed by her lover's presence.

It seemed as if this pure creature was drawing him to heaven holding by that good book, and by her touching voice. He felt good all over. To be like her, he tried to bend his whole mind on the prayers of the church, and for the first time realised how beautiful they are.

After service he followed her to the door. Island home again, by the pailful; and she had a thick shawl but no umbrella. He had brought a large one on the chance; he would see her home.

"Quite unnecessary; it is so near."

He insisted; she persisted; and, persisting, yielded. They said but little; yet they seemed to interchange volumes; and, at each gaslight they pa.s.sed, they stole a look and treasured it to feed on.

That night was one broad step more towards the great happiness, or great misery, which awaits a n.o.ble love. Such loves, somewhat rare in Nature, have lately become so very rare in Fiction that I have ventured, with many misgivings, to detail the peculiarities of its rise and progress.

But now for a time it advanced on beaten tracks. Alfred had the right to call at Albion Villa, and he came twice; once when Mrs. Dodd was out.

This was the time he stayed the two hours. A Mrs. James invited Jane and him to tea and exposition. There he met Julia and Edward, who had just returned. Edward was taken with Jane Hardie's face and dovelike eyes; eyes that dwelt with a soft and chastened admiration on his masculine face and his model form, and their owner felt she had received "a call"

to watch over his spiritual weal. So they paired off.

Julia's fluctuating spirits settled now into a calm, demure, complacency. Her mother, finding this strange remedial virtue in youthful society, gave young parties, inviting Jane and Alfred in their turn. Jane hesitated, but, as she could no longer keep Julia from knowing her worldly brother, and hoped a way might be opened for her to rescue Edward, she relaxed her general rule, which was to go into no company unless some religious service formed part of the entertainment.

Yet her conscience was ill at ease; and, to set them an example, she took care, when she asked the Dodds in return, to have a clergyman there of her own party, who could pray and expound with unction.

Mrs. Dodd, not to throw cold water on what seemed to gratify her children, accepted Miss Hardie's invitation; but she never intended to go, and at the last moment wrote to say she was slightly indisposed. The nature of her _indisposition_ she revealed to Julia alone. "That young lady keeps me on thorns. I never feel secure she will not say or do something extravagant or unusual: she seems to suspect sobriety and good taste of being in league with impiety. Here I succeed in bridling her a little; but encounter a female enthusiast in her own house? _merci!_ After all, there must be something good in her, since she is your friend, and you are hers. But I have something more serious to say before you go there: it is about her brother. He is a flirt: in fact, a notorious one, more than one lady tells me."

Julia was silent, but began to be very uneasy; they were sitting and talking after sunset, yet without candles. She profited for once by that prodigious gap in the intelligence of "the s.e.x."

"I hear he pays you compliments, and I have seen a disposition to single you out. Now, my love, you have the good sense to know that, whatever a young gentleman of that age says to you, he says to many other ladies; but your experience is not equal to your sense; so profit by mine. A girl of your age must never be talked of with a person of the other s.e.x: it is fatal; fatal! but if you permit yourself to be singled out, you will be talked of, and distress those who love you. It is easy to avoid injudicious duets in society; oblige me by doing so to-night." To show how much she was in earnest, Mrs. Dodd hinted that, were her admonition neglected, she should regret for once having kept clear of an enthusiast.

Julia had no alternative; she a.s.sented in a faint voice. After a pause she faltered out, "And suppose he should esteem me seriously?"