Love Me Little, Love Me Long Part 49

This is the cruelest separation; mere distance is the mildest. Where land and sea alone lie between two loving hearts, they pine, but are at rest. A piece of paper, and a few lines traced by the hand that reads like a face, and the two sad hearts exult and embrace one another afresh, in spite of a hemisphere of dirt and salt water, that parts bodies but not minds. But to be close, yet kept aloof by red-hot iron and chilling ice, by rivals, by etiquette and cold indifference--to be near, yet far--this is to be apart--this, this is separation.

A gush of rage and bitterness foreign to his natural temper came over Mr. Dodd. "Since I can't have the girl I love, I will have n.o.body but my own thoughts. I cannot bear the others and their chat to-day. I will go and think of her, since that is all she will let me do"; and directly after breakfast David walked out on the downs and made by instinct for the sea. The wounded deer shunned the lively herd.

The ladies, as they sat in the drawing-room, received visits of a less flattering character than usual. Reginald kept popping in, inquiring, "Where was Mr. Dodd?" and would not believe they had not hid him somewhere. He was followed by Kenealy, who came in and put them but one question, "Where is Dawd?"

"We don't know," said Mrs. Bazalgette sharply; "we have not been intrusted with the care of Mr. Dodd."

Kenealy sauntered forth disconsolate. Finally Mr. Bazalgette put his head in, and surveyed the room keenly but in silence; so then his wife looked up, and asked him satirically if he did not want Mr. Dodd.

"Of course I do," was the gracious reply; "what else should I come here for?"

"Well, he is lost; you had better put him in the 'Hue and Cry.'"

La Bazalgette was getting jealous of her own flirtee: he attracted too much of that attention she loved so dear.

At last Reginald, despairing of Dodd, went in search of another playmate--Master Christmas, a young gentleman a year older than himself, who lived within half a mile. Before he went he inquired what there was for his dinner, and, being informed "roast mutton," was not enraptured; he then asked with greater solicitude what was the pudding, and, being told "rice," betrayed disgust and anger, as was remembered when too late.

At two o'clock, the day being fine, the ladies went for a long ride, accompanied by Talboys only. Kenealy excused himself: "He must see if he could not find Dawd."

Mrs. Bazalgette started in a pet; but, after the first canter, she set herself to bewitch Mr. Talboys, just to keep her hand in; she flattered him up hill and down dale. Lucy was silent and _distraite._

"From that hill you look right down upon the sea," said Mrs.

Bazalgette; "what do you say? It is only two miles farther."

On they cantered, and, leaving the high road, dived into a green lane which led them, by a gradual ascent, to Mariner's Folly on the summit of the cliff. Mariner's Folly looked at a distance like an enormous bush in the shape of a lion; but, when you came nearer, you saw it was three remarkably large blackthorn-trees planted together. As they approached it at a walk, Mrs. Bazalgette told Mr. Talboys its legend.

"These trees were planted a hundred and fifty years ago by a retired buccaneer."

"Aunt, now, it was only a lieutenant."

"Be quiet, Lucy, and don't spoil me; I _call_ him a buccaneer.

Some say it is named his "Folly," because, you must know, his ghost comes and sits here at times, and that is an absurd practice, s.h.i.+vering in the cold. Others more learned say it comes from a Latin word 'folio,' or some such thing, that means a leaf; the mariner's leafy screen." She then added with reckless levity, "I wonder whether we shall find Buckey on the other side, looking at the s.h.i.+ps through a ghostly telescope--ha! ha!--ah! ah! help! mercy! forgive me! Oh, dear, it is only Mr. Dodd in his jacket--you frightened me so. Oh! oh!

There--I am ill. Catch me, somebody;" and she dropped her whip, and, seeing David's eye was on her, subsided backward with considerable courage and trustfulness, and for the second time contrived to be in her flirtee's arms.

I wish my friend Aristotle had been there; I think he would have been pleased at her [Greek] (presence of mind) in turning even her terror of the supernatural so quickly to account, and making it subservient to flirtation.

David sat heart-stricken and hopeless, gazing at the sea. The hours pa.s.sed by his heavy heart unheeded. The leafy screen deadened the light sound of the horses' feet on the turf, and, moreover, his senses were all turned inward. They were upon him, and he did not move, but still held his head in his hands and gazed upon the sea. At Mrs.

Bazalgette's cries he started up, and looked confusedly at them all; but, when she did the feinting business, he thought she was going to faint, and caught her in his arms; and, holding her in them a moment as if she had been a child, he deposited her very gently in a sitting posture at the foot of one of the trees, and, taking her hand, slapped it to bring her to.

"Oh, don't! you hurt me," cried the lady in her natural voice.

Lucy, barbarous girl, never came to her aunt's a.s.sistance. At the first fright she seemed slightly agitated, but she now sat impa.s.sive on her pony, and even wore a satirical smile.

"Now, dear aunt, when you have done, Mr. Dodd will put you on your horse again."

On this hint David lifted her like a child, _malgre_ a little squeak she thought it well to utter, and put her in the saddle again.

She thanked him in a low, murmuring voice. She then plied David with a host of questions. "How came he so far from home?" "Why had he deserted them all day?" David hung his head, and did not answer. Lucy came to his relief: "It would be as well if you would make him promise to be at home in time for dinner; and, by the way, I have a favor to ask of you, Mr. Dodd."

"A favor to ask of me?!"

"Oh, you know we all make demands upon your good-nature in turn."

"That is true," said La Bazalgette, tenderly. "I don't know what will become of us all when he goes."

Lucy then explained "that the masked ball suggested by Mr. Talboys'

beautiful dresses was to be very soon, and she wanted Mr. Dodd to practice quadrilles and waltzes with her; it will be so much better with the violin and piano than with a piano alone, and you are such an excellent timist--will you, Mr. Dodd?"

"That I will," said David, his eyes sparkling with delight; "thank you."

"Then, as I shall practice before the gentlemen join us, and it is four o'clock now, had you not better turn your back on the sea, and make the best of your way home?"

"I will be there almost as soon as you."

"Indeed! what, on foot, and we on horseback?"

"Ay; but I can steer in the wind's eye."

"Aunt, Mr. Dodd proposes a race home."

"With all my heart. How much start are we to give him?"

"None at all," said David; "are you ready? Then give way," and he started down the hill at a killing pace.

The equestrians were obliged to walk down the hill, and when they reached the bottom David was going as the crow flies across some meadows half a mile ahead. A good canter soon brought them on a line with him, but every now and then the turns of the road and the hills gave him an advantage. Lucy, naturally kind-hearted, would have relaxed her pace to make the race more equal, but Talboys urged her on; and as a horse is, after all, a faster animal than a sailor, they rode in at the front gate while David was still two fields off.

"Come," said Mrs. Bazalgette, regretfully, "we have beat him, poor fellow, but we won't go in till we see what has become of him."

As they loitered on the lawn, Henry the footman came out with a salver, and on it reposed a soiled note. Henry presented it with demure obsequiousness, then retired grinning furtively.

"What is this--a begging-letter? What a vile hand! Look, Lucy; did you ever? Why, it must be some pauper."

"Have a little mercy, aunt," said Lucy, piteously; "that hand has been formed under my care and daily superintendence: it is Reginald's."

"Oh, that alters the case. What can the dear child have to say to me!

Ah! the little wretch! Send the servants after him in every direction.

Oh, who would be a mother!"

The letter was written in lines with two pernicious defects. 1st. They were like the wooden part of a bow instead of its string. 2d. They yielded to gravity--kept tending down, down, to the righthand corner more and more. In the use of capitals the writer had taken the copyhead as his model. The style, however, was pithy, and in writing that is the first Christian grace--no, I forgot, it is the second; pellucidity is the first.

"Dear mama, me and johnny Cristmas are gone to the north Pole his unkle went twise we Shall be back in siks munths Please give my love to lucy and Papa and ask lucy to be kind to My ginnipigs i shall want them Wen i come back. too much Cabiges is not good for ginnipigs.

Wen i come back i hope there Will be no rise left. it is very Unjust to give me those nasty Messy pudens i am not a child There filthy there abbommanabel.

Johny says it is funy at the north Pole and there are bares and they Are wite.

I remain

"Your duteful son

"Reginald George Bazalgette."