Innocent : her fancy and his fact Part 11

Here an overpowering sense of calamity swept over her, and dropping on her knees by the open window she laid her head on her folded arms and wept bitterly.

A voice called her in subdued accents once or twice, "Innocent!

Innocent!"--but she did not hear.

Presently a rose flung through the window fell on her bent head. She started up, alarmed.

"Innocent!"

Timidly she leaned out over the window-sill, looking down into the dusky green of clambering foliage, and saw a familiar face smiling up at her. She uttered a soft cry.

"Robin!"

"Yes--it's Robin!" he replied. "Innocent, what's the matter? I heard you crying!"

"No--no!" she answered, whisperingly--"It's nothing! Oh, Robin!--why are you here at this time of night? Do go away!"

"Not I!" and Robin placed one foot firmly on the tough and gnarled branch of a giant wistaria that was trained thickly all over that side of the house--"I'm coming up!"

"Oh, Robin!" And straightway Innocent ran back into her room, there to throw on a dark cloak which enveloped her so completely that only her small fair head showed above its enshrouding folds,--then returning slowly she watched with mingled interest and trepidation the gradual ascent of her lover, as, like another Romeo, he ascended the natural ladder formed by the thick rope-like twisted stems of the ancient creeper, grown st.u.r.dy with years and capable of bearing a much greater weight than that of the light and agile young man, who, with a smile of amused triumph, at last brought himself on a level with the window-sill and seated himself on its projecting ledge.

"I won't come in," he said, mischievously--"though I might!--if I dared! But I mustn't break into my lady's bower without her sovereign permission! I say, Innocent, how pretty you look! Don't be frightened!--dear, dear little girl,--you know I wouldn't touch so much as a hair of your sweet little head! I'm not a brute--and though I'm longing to kiss you I promise I won't even try!"

She moved away from him into the deeper shadow, but a ray of the moon showed him her face, very pale, with a deep sadness upon it which was strange and new to him.

"Tell me what's wrong?" he asked. "I've been too wide-awake and restless to go to bed,--so I came out in the garden just to breathe the air and look up at your window--and I heard a sound of sobbing like that of a little child who was badly hurt--Innocent!"

For she had suddenly stretched out her hands to him in impulsive appeal.

"Oh yes--that's true!--I am badly hurt, Robin!" she said, in low trembling accents--"So badly hurt that I think I shall never get over it!"

Surprised, he took her hands in his own with a gentle reverence, though to be able to draw her nearer to him thus, set his heart beating quickly.

"What is it?" he questioned her, anxiously, as all unconsciously she leaned closer towards him and he saw her soft eyes, wet with tears, s.h.i.+ning upon him like stars in the gloom. "Is it bad news of Uncle Hugo?"

"Bad news of him, but worse of me!" she answered, sighingly. "Oh, Robin, shall I tell you?"

He looked at her tenderly. The dark cloak about her had fallen a little aside, and showed a gleam of white neck emerging from snowy drapery underneath--it was, to his fancy, as though a white rose-petal had been suddenly and delicately unfurled. He longed to kiss that virginal whiteness, and trembled at the audacity of his own desire.

"Yes, dear, tell me!" he murmured, abstractedly, scarcely thinking of what he was saying, and only conscious of the thrill and ecstasy of love which seemed to him the one thing necessary for existence in earth or heaven.

And so, with her hands still warmly held in his, she told him all. In a sad voice, with lowered eyes and quivering lips, she related her plaintive little history, disclosing her unbaptised shame,--her unowned parentage,--her desperately forlorn and lonely condition. And Robin listened--amazed and perplexed.

"It seems to be all my fault," concluded Innocent, sorrowfully--"and yet it is not really so! Of course I ought never to have been born--but I couldn't help it, could I? And now it seems quite wrong for me to even live!--I am not wanted--and ever since I was twelve years old your Uncle has only kept me out of charity--"

But at this Robin started as though some one had struck him.

"Innocent!" he exclaimed--"Do not say such a thing!--do not think it!

Uncle Hugo has LOVED you!--and you--you have loved him!"

She drew her hands away from his and covered her face.

"I know!--I know!" and her tears fell fast again--"But I am not his, and he is not mine!"

Robin was silent. The position was so unexpected and bewildering that he hardly knew what to say. But chiefly he felt that he must try and comfort this little weeping angel, who, so far as he was concerned, held his life subservient to her charm. He began talking softly and cheerily:

"Why should it matter so much?" he said. "If you do not know who you are--if none of us know--it may be more fortunate for you than you can imagine! We cannot tell! Your own father may claim you--your own mother--such things are quite possible! You may be like the princess of a fairy-tale--rich people may come and take you away from Briar Farm and from me--and you will be too grand to think of us any more, and I shall only be the poor farmer in your eyes--you will wonder how you could ever have spoken to me--"

"Robin!" Her hands dropped from her face and she looked at him in reproachful sadness. "Why do you say this? You know it could never be true!--never! If I had a father who cared for me, he would not have forgotten--and my mother, if she were a true mother, would have tried to find me long ago! No, Robin!--I ought to have died when I was a baby. No one wants me--I am a deserted child--'base-born,' as your Uncle Hugo says,--and of course he is right--but the sin of it is not mine!"

She had such a pitiful, fragile and fair appearance, standing half in shadow and half in the mystic radiance of the moon, that Robin Clifford's heart ached with love and longing for her.

"Sin!" he echoed--"Sin and you have never met each other! You are like your name, innocent of all evil! Oh, Innocent! If you could only care for me as I care for you!"

She gave a s.h.i.+vering sigh.

"Do you--can you care?--NOW?" she asked.

"Of course! What is there in all this story that can change my love for you? That you are not my cousin?--that my uncle is not your own father?

What does that matter to me? You are someone else's child, and if we never know who that someone is, why should we vex ourselves about it?

You are you!--you are Innocent!--the sweetest, dearest little girl that ever lived, and I adore you! What difference does it make that you are not Uncle Hugo's daughter?"

"It makes a great difference to me," she answered, sadly--"I do not belong any more to the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin!"

Robin stared, amazed--then smiled.

"Why, Innocent!" he exclaimed--"Surely you're not worrying your mind over that old knight, dead and gone more than three hundred years ago!

Dear little goose! How on earth does he come into this trouble of yours?"

"He comes in everywhere!" she replied, clasping and unclasping her hands nervously as she spoke. "You don't know, Robin!--you would never understand! But I have loved the Sieur Amadis ever since I can remember;--I have talked to him and studied with him!--I have read his old books, and all the poems he wrote--and he seemed to be my friend! I thought I was born of his kindred--and I was proud of it--and I felt it would be my duty to live at Briar Farm always because he would wish his line quite unbroken--and I think--perhaps--yes, I think I might have married you and been a good wife to you just for his sake!--and now it is all spoiled!--because though you will be the master of Briar Farm, you will not be the lineal descendant of the Sieur Amadis! No,--it is finished!--all finished with your Uncle Hugo!--and the doctors say he can only live a year!"

Her grief was so touching and pathetic that Robin could not find it in his heart to make a jest of the romance she had woven round the old French knight whose history had almost pa.s.sed into a legend. After all, what she said was true--the line of the Jocelyn family had been kept intact through three centuries till now--and a direct heir had always inherited Briar Farm. He himself had taken a certain pride in thinking that Uncle Hugo's "love-child," as he had believed her to be, was at any rate, love-child or no, born of the Jocelyn blood--and that when he married her, as he hoped and fully purposed to do, he would discard his own name of Clifford and take that of Jocelyn, in order to keep the continuity of a.s.sociations unbroken as far as possible. All these ideas were put to flight by Innocent's story, and, as the position became more evident to him, the smiling expression on his face changed to one of gravity.

"Dear Innocent," he said, at last--"Don't cry! It cuts me to the heart!

I would give my very life to save you from a sorrow--you know I would!

If you ever thought, as you say, that you could or would marry me for the sake of the Sieur Amadis, you might just as well marry me now, even though the Sieur Amadis is out of it. I would make you so happy! I would indeed! And no one need ever know that you are not really the lineal descendant of the Knight--"

She interrupted him.

"Priscilla knows," she said--"and, no matter how you look at it, I am 'base-born.' Your Uncle Hugo has let all the village folk think I am his illegitimate child--and that is 'base-born' of itself. Oh, it is cruel! Even you thought so, didn't you?"

Robin hesitated.

"I did not know, dear," he answered, gently--"I fancied--"

"Do not deny it, Robin!" she said, mournfully. "You did think so! Well, it's true enough, I suppose!--I am 'base-born'--but your uncle is not my father. He is a good, upright man--you can always be proud of him!

He has not sinned,--though he has burdened me with the shame of sin! I think that is unfair,--but I must bear it somehow, and I will try to be brave. I'm glad I've told you all about it,--and you are very kind to have taken it so well--and to care for me still--but I shall never marry you, Robin!--never! I shall never bring my 'base-born' blood into the family of Jocelyn!"

His heart sank as he heard her--and involuntarily he stretched out his arms in appeal.