The Story of Antony Grace Part 59

"I cold-blooded--I know naught of love?" he whispered hoa.r.s.ely; "when, for a year past, my life has been one long-drawn agony! I know naught of love, who have had to crush down every thought, every aspiration, lest I should be a traitor to the man whose bread I eat! Love? Girl, my life has been a torture to me, knowing, as I did, that I was a groveller, as you say, and that I must grovel on, not daring to look up to one so far above me, that--Heaven help me, what am I saying?" he cried, looking from one to the other. "Linny, for our dead father's sake--for the sake of that poor, pain-wrung sufferer below, let there be no more of this. Trust me, child. Believe in me. I know so much of what you must suffer, that if he, whoever he be, prove only true and worthy of you, he shall be welcome here. But why raise this barrier between us? See, I am not angry now. It is all past. You roused that within me that I could not quell, but I am calm again, and, as your brother, I implore you, tell me who is this man?"

"I--I cannot," said Linny, shaking her head.

"You cannot?"

"No," she said firmly; "I gave my promise."

"That you would not tell me--your own brother? Your mother then?"

"No, not now," she said, shaking her head. "After a time I will."

Without another word she turned and ran from the room, leaving Hallett gazing vacantly before him, as if suffering from some shock.

I went up to him at last. "Can I help you, Hallett?" I said; and he turned and gazed at me as if he had not understood my words.

"Antony," he said at length, "a time back I should have thought it folly to make a friend and confidant of such a boy as you; but I have no man friend: I have shut myself up with those two below there, and when I have not been with them my hours have been spent here--here," he said, pointing mockingly at the model, "with my love, and a strange, coquettish jade she is--is she not? But somehow, my boy, we two have drifted together, and we are friends, badly coupled as we may seem. You have heard what Linny said. Poor child, she must be saved at any cost, though I hardly know what course to pursue. There," he said wearily, "let it rest for to-night; sometimes, in the thickest wilderness of our lives, a little path opens out where least expected, and something may offer itself even here."

"I am very, very sorry, Hallett," I said.

"I know it, my boy, I know it," he said hurriedly; "but forget what you heard me say to-night. I was betrayed into speaking as I did by a fit of pa.s.sion. Forget it, Antony, forget it."

I did not answer, and he turned to me.

"I meant to have had a good work at the model to-night, but that little scene stopped it. Now about yourself. You are getting a sad truant from the office."

He said it in a hesitating manner, and turned his face away directly after, but only to dart round in surprise at my next words.

"I am not coming back to the office any more--but don't think me ungrateful."

"Not coming back?"

"No, Hallett; Miss Carr sent for me--she has been away--and I am to go at once as a pupil to an engineer."

He turned his back to me, and I ran to his side:

"Oh, Hallett," I cried piteously; "don't be angry with me. I told her I was sorry to go, because you were such a good friend."

"You told her that, Antony?"

"Indeed, indeed I did; but I thought in being an engineer I might be some day such a help to you, and that it was for the best; and now you are vexed and think me ungrateful."

He was silent for a few moments, and then he turned to me and took my hands, speaking in a low, husky voice:

"You must not heed me to-night, Antony," he said. "You saw how upset and strange I was. This affair of Linny's, and her letter, trouble me more than I care to own. No, no, my dear boy, I am not vexed with you, and I do not for a moment think you ungrateful."

"You do not!" I cried joyfully.

"No, no, of course not. I rejoice to find that you have so good and powerful a friend in--Miss Carr. She must be--a truly good--woman."

"She's everything that's good and beautiful and kind," I cried, bursting into raptures about her. "I'm to have books and to go there every week, and she trusts to me to try and succeed well in my new life. Oh, Hallett, you can't think how I love her."

He laid his hand on my shoulder and gazed with a strange light in his eyes upon my eager face.

"That's right," he said. "Yes--love her, and never give her cause to blush for her kindness to you, my boy."

He sat listening to me eagerly as I went on telling him her words, describing her home, everything I could think of, but the one subject tabooed, and of that I gave no hint, while he, poor fellow, sat drinking in what was to him a poisoned draught, and I unwittingly kept on adding to his pain.

"I'm only afraid of one thing," I said with all a boy's outspoken frankness.

"And what is that, Antony?"

"I'm afraid that when she is married to Mr Lister--"

His hand seemed to press my shoulder more tightly.

"Yes," he said in a whisper, "she is to be married to Mr Lister."

"Yes, I knew that the first day I came to the office."

"It is the common talk there," he said with knitted brows. "And what is your fear, Antony?"

"That when she is married to Mr Lister she will forget all about me."

"You wrong her, boy," he said almost fiercely; and I stared at his strange display of excitement, for I had not the key then to his thoughts, and went on blindly again and again tearing open his throbbing wound.

"You wrong her," he said. "Antony, Miss Carr is a woman to have won whose esteem is to have won a priceless gem, and he who goes farther, and wins her love, can look but for one greater happiness--that of heaven."

He was soaring far beyond my reach, grovelling young mole that I was, and I said in an uneasy way that must have sounded terribly commonplace and selfish:

"You don't think she will forget me, then?"

"No," he said sternly. "There is that in her face which seems to say that she is one who never forgets--never forgives. She is no common woman, Antony; be worthy of her trust, and think of her name in your prayers before you sleep."

I gazed at him curiously, he seemed so strange; and, noticing my uneasy looks, he said in a cheerful voice:

"There, we will not talk so seriously any more. You see how I trust you, Antony, in return for your confidence in me. Now let's talk of pleasant things. An engineer, eh?"

"Yes," I said, delighted at the change in his conversation. "I am glad of it--heartily glad of it," he said with kindling eyes. "Linny is right; I do love and idolise my model, and you shall share her love, Antony. Together we will make her the queen of models, and if in time, perhaps years hence, I do perfect her--nay, if we perfect her--there, you see," he said playfully, "I have no petty jealousies--you will then be engineer enough to make the drawings and calculations for the machines that are to grow from the model. Is it a bargain, Antony?"

"That it is," I cried, holding out my hand, which he firmly clasped; and that night I went back to Revitts' walking upon air, with my head in a whirl with the fancied noise of the machinery made by Hallett and Grace, while, out of my share of the proceeds, I was going down to Rowford to pay Mr Blakeford all my father's debt; and then--being quite a man grown--I meant to tell him he was a cowardly, despicable scoundrel, for behaving to me as he did when I was a boy.

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.

MR JABEZ ROWLE'S MONEY MATTERS.

Something like the same sensation came over me when I made my way to Great George Street, Westminster, as I had felt on the morning when I presented myself at the great printing-office. But my nervousness soon pa.s.sed away on being received by Mr Girtley, a short, broad-shouldered man, with a big head covered with crisp, curly grey hair.