Lover or Friend Part 89

'But I must work; it is my duty to work,' she returned, a little restlessly; 'and, mother, you must help, and not spoil me. When I see you and Gage looking at me with tears in your eyes, it troubles me to see them. I want you to be happy. I want everything to go on as usual, and I mean to be happy, too.'

And then she went away and gave Mollie her music-lesson, and when it was over she went in search of Michael.

Michael knew he was necessary to her--that in certain restless moods he was able to soothe her; so he stayed manfully at his post until after Christmas.

But with the new year he resumed his Bohemian life, spending two or three weeks at South Audley Street, and then running down to Woodcote for a few days. He felt it was wiser to do so, and he could leave her more comfortably now. She was better in every way: she drooped less visibly, her smile became more frequent, and the constant society of Mollie and intercourse with her fresh girlish mind were evidently beneficial.

She would do now without him, he told himself as he went back to his lodgings, and he need no longer put such a force on himself. 'Until I can speak, until the time has come for me to open my heart to her, it is better that we should be apart.'

That Audrey held a different opinion was evident, and she could not always conceal her disappointment when Michael's brief visits became briefer and more infrequent.

'It is all that troublesome money,' she said once, when one spring morning he stood waiting for the dog-cart to take him to the station.

'Of course, Woodcote does not content you now. You want a house of your own, and to be your own master. Well, it is perfectly natural,' she added quickly.

'I have always been my own master,' he returned quietly; 'and as for the house you are so fond of talking about, it seems still in the clouds as far as I am concerned. Neither have I once visited Wardour Street.'

'No; you have been very slow about it,' she replied, smiling; 'you were never in a hurry to possess your good things, Michael. I have often envied you your patience.'

And then the mare trotted round the corner.

'There is an old saying, that "all comes round to him who waits." Do you think that is true, Audrey?'

He did not wait for her answer, as he climbed up into the driving-seat and took the reins; then he lifted his hat to her with rather a sad smile.

'Yes, I have waited a long time, and it will not come yet.' And then he touched the mare a little smartly, and the next moment she was trotting briskly towards the gate.

'Why had he looked so sad?' she wondered, as she went back to Mollie. He had not seemed like himself all the week, and now he had gone. 'If he only knew how much I want him, I think he would not go away so often,'

she said to herself as she sat down to correct Mollie's French exercise.

It was in the early days of June that Michael paid one of these flying visits to Rutherford, and as he drove through the green lanes, with the sweet summer breeze just stirring the leaves, he suddenly remembered that Cyril had lain in his quiet grave just eight months. He hardly knew why the thought had occurred to him, for he had been pondering a far different subject. 'Eight months! I had no idea that it had been so long,' he said to himself; 'time pa.s.ses more quickly as one grows older.

If I live to the end of the year I shall be nine-and-thirty. No wonder I feel a sober middle-aged man!'

These reflections were hardly exhilarating, and he was glad when Woodcote was in sight.

'You need not drive in, Fenton,' he said to the groom; 'take the mare round to the stables, and I will walk up to the house.'

The gardens of Woodcote looked lovelier than ever this afternoon, he thought, as he walked slowly up the terrace: the tender green of the foliage, the gay tints of lilacs and laburnums and pink and white horse chestnuts, made a gorgeous background. Here a guelder rose thrust its soft puffy b.a.l.l.s almost in his face, while the white s.h.i.+mmering leaves of the maple contrasted superbly with the dark-veined leaves of the copper beech. Dr. Ross had always prided himself on his rare trees and shrubs, and, indeed, no other garden in Rutherford could compete with the grounds of Woodcote; the long lawn that stretched below the terrace was kept free from daisies, and was as smooth as velvet.

Some lads were playing tennis there now, and a young lady in a gray dress was sitting under a clump of lilacs, watching them. For a moment Michael hesitated, thinking it was a stranger; but as she beckoned to him, a sudden gleam came into his eyes, and he hastily crossed the lawn.

'I have been waiting for you; you are a little late, Michael,' she said, as he shook hands with her. 'Mollie has gone out with mother; I asked her to take my place.'

But he stood looking at her, and there was a strangely pleased expression on his face.

'I did not know you,' he said, in a low voice; 'I thought it was a strange young lady sitting on the bench. It was this, I suppose;' and he touched her gown as he spoke.

Audrey coloured. The remark evidently pained her.

'I left off my black gown yesterday,' she replied hurriedly. 'I found out that it troubled father, though he was too kind to tell me so. It was Gage who spoke to me; she said that it was a pity to wear it so long.'

'I don't see that Gage had any right to speak to you. It was your affair, not hers.'

There was a trace of sharpness in Michael's tone, and the light had faded out of his eyes. After all, there was no cause for him to rejoice; she had not left off her mourning of her own accord. What a fool he had been! Of course, she had only done it to please her father.

'No; it was kind of her to speak; and, after all, what does it matter?

Father seemed so relieved when I put on this, and I can remember Cyril without the help of a black gown. It is better to please other people than to please one's self, and after the first moment I did not mind.

Those boys are so noisy,' she continued in her ordinary manner, as though she were not willing to discuss the subject more fully. 'Shall we go to "Michael's bench"? Booty is making for that direction, as usual, and the pond is so pretty this afternoon.'

'As you like,' he returned, a little moodily.

Strange to say, this little episode of the dress had upset his equanimity, and he could not at once regain his old calmness. Had ever any gown become her so well? he wondered, with the exaggeration natural to a lover. She had a spray of laburnum in her hand, and the suns.h.i.+ne seemed to thread her brown hair with gold. It seemed to him as though there was a softer look in her gray eyes, as though his return were very welcome to her.

'Michael,' she said suddenly, as they stood watching Eiderdown and Snowflake as they came sailing proudly up the pond in all the majesty of unruffled feathers, and Booty, as usual, pattered to the water's edge to bark at them until he was hoa.r.s.e, 'what is this that I hear about your going away? Father tells me that you have made all sorts of plans for yourself.'

'My money is burning a hole in my purse, you see,' he returned, picking up a dry twig from the ground, a proceeding that seemed to drive Booty frantic with excitement. 'I am beginning to realise my responsibility as a man of property; and as, of course, my first duty is to look after number one----'

But she would not allow him to finish.

'Michael, will you come and sit down? How can we talk properly while you are picking up sticks for Booty?'

Then he followed her to the bench, but, instead of seating himself, he leaned lazily against a baby-willow.

'I am going abroad with d.i.c.k Abercrombie,' he said, as though he were mentioning an everyday occurrence. 'You know how often I have planned a tour in Switzerland and Italy, but I have never been able to carry it out; and now I can combine duty and pleasure.'

'Where does the duty lie, Michael?'

But she did not smile as she put the question, and it struck him that she looked a little dull.

'Why, with d.i.c.k, of course,' he returned quickly. 'Don't you know, the poor fellow is terribly out of health; his father is very anxious about him. He has been over-working, and I fancy there is some sort of love-affair as well; at least, the Doctor hinted as much. Anyhow, he is to strike work for six months; and as he wanted a travelling companion, I offered my humble services.'

'But you will not be away all that time?' she asked, with visible anxiety.

'Six months is not so very long, is it?' he returned coolly; 'and I do not see how we shall work out our plans even in that time. We are to do Switzerland thoroughly and to spend at least a month in the Engadine; then there are the Swiss Tyrol and the Italian lakes, and afterwards Rome, Florence, Venice, and Naples. If d.i.c.k tires of it and throws it up, I can still keep on alone. I want to do the thing properly for once in my life, and I have even thought of Greece and the Holy Land the following spring.'

But again she interrupted him, and this time he saw the pained look in her eyes.

'You will leave us for all that time--you will let him come back alone, and go on by yourself? Oh, Michael! what shall I do without you? You are more necessary to me than ever now.'

She so seldom thought of herself that this speech took him by surprise.

There was a tone of reproach in her voice, as though she thought him unkind for leaving her. Michael was not his ordinary calm self that afternoon. For months he had dreaded to find himself alone with her; but now the very sweetness of that loving reproach seemed too much for him.

'A man is not always master of himself,' Cyril had once said; and at that moment Michael felt that it was no longer possible for him to be silent. He could bear it no more.

'I shall stay away,' he said in a strangely-suppressed voice, 'because it is only right for me to do so--because it is my duty to leave you.'

'Your duty to leave me,' she faltered. 'Oh, Michael, why?'

'Do you wish me to tell you?' he said, looking at her fully as he stood opposite to her; and there was a gleam in the keen blue eyes that made her suddenly avert her face. 'Is it possible that all these years you have not known what you have been to me--that you have not guessed my love?'