Ovington's Bank Part 44

She did not understand.

He told her in detail, and, while he told her, they stood, two pathetic figures in the mist and rain that dripped slowly and sadly from the eaves of the Dutch summerhouse. She stood, pressing her hands together, trying to comprehend. And he hid nothing: telling her even of the ten or twelve thousand that, did they possess it, would save them; telling her that which had decided him to bid her farewell--an item of news which had reached the bank on the previous evening, after Arthur had left for Garth. The great house of Poles, with a wide connection among country banks, had closed its doors; and not only that, but Williams's, Ovington's agents, had followed suit within six hours. The tidings had come by special messenger, but would be known in the town in the morning, and would certainly cause a panic and a run on both banks. That news had been the last straw, he said. It had pushed him to a decision. He had felt that he must give her back her word, and without the loss of a day must put it in her power to say that there was nothing between them.

Once and again, as he told his tale, she put in a question, or uttered a pitying exclamation. But for the most part she listened in silence, controlling herself, suppressing the agitation which shook her. When he had done, she put a question, but it was one so irrelevant, so unexpected, so far from the mark, that it acted on him like a douche of cold water. "What have you done to your coat?" she asked. "My coat?"

"Yes." She pointed to his shoulder.

He glanced down at his coat, but he felt the check. Surely the ways of women were strange, their manner of taking things past finding out. He explained, but he could not hide his chagrin. "I wasn't thinking, and took the first that came to hand," he said--"an old one. Does it matter?"

But she continued to stare at it. He was wearing a riding coat, high in the collar, long in the skirts, shaped to the figure. On the light buff of the cloth a stain spread downwards from shoulder to breast.

The right arm and cuff, too, were discolored, and it said much for the disorder of his thoughts that he had ridden from town without noticing it. She eyed the stain with distaste, with something like a shudder.

"It is blood," she said, "isn't it?"

He shrugged his shoulders, yet himself viewed it askance. "Yes," he said. "I don't know how you knew. I wore it that night, you know. I did not mean to wear it again, but in my hurry----"

"Do you mean the night that my father was hurt?"

"Yes."

"You held him up in the carriage?"

"Yes, but--" squinting at it--"I don't think that it was done then.

I believe it was done when I was picking him up in the road, Jos, before Bourdillon came. Indeed, I remember that your father noticed it--before he fainted, you know."

"My father noticed it?"

"Well, oddly enough, he did."

"While you were supporting him?" There was a strange light in her eyes, and the blood had come back to her cheeks. "But where was Thomas--the man--then?"

"Oh, he had gone off, across the fields."

"Before Arthur came up, do you mean?"

"To be sure, some time before. However----"

But, "No, Clement, I want to understand this," she insisted, breaking in on him. Her voice betrayed her excitement, and to hold him to the point she laid her hands on his shoulders, standing before him and close to him. "Tell me again, and clearly. Do you mean that it was you who drove Thomas off? Before Arthur came up?"

He stared. "Well, of course it was," he said. "Didn't you know that?

Didn't Arthur tell you?"

She avoided the question, and instead, "Then it was your coat that was spoiled?" she said. "This coat?"

"Well, of course it was. You can see that."

She looked at him, her cheeks flushed, her pride in him showing in her eyes. He had indeed justified her choice of him, her belief in him, her confidence in him. He had done this and had said nothing. The day was cold, and she was not warmly clad, but she felt no cold--now. It was raining, but she was no longer aware of it. There had sprung up in her heart, not only courage, but a faint, a very faint hope.

He had come to dash her down, to fill her cup of sorrow to the brim, to leave her lonely in the world and comfortless--for never, never could she love another! And instead he had given her hope--a hope forlorn and far off, gleaming faint as the small stars in distant Ca.s.siopeia, and often doubt, like an evening mist, would veil it. But it sparkled, she saw it, she drew courage from it.

Meanwhile, surprised by the turn her thoughts had taken, he was still more surprised by the change in her looks, the color in her cheeks, the light in her eyes. He did not understand, and for a moment, seeing himself no hope but only sorrow and parting, he was tempted to think that she trifled. What mattered it what coat he wore, or what had stained it, or the details of a story old now, and which he supposed to be as well known to her as to him? Perhaps she did not comprehend, and, "Jos," he said, inviting her to be serious, "do you understand that this is our parting?"

But "No! no!" she said resolutely. "We are not going to part."

"But don't you see," sadly, "that I cannot go to your father now? That next week we may be beggars, and my father a ruined man? I could ask no man, even a poor man, for his daughter now. I must work to live, work as a clerk--as, I don't know what, Jos, but in some position far removed from your life, and far removed from your cla.s.s. I could not speak to your father now, and it is that which has brought me to you to--to say good-bye, dearest--to part, Jos! The gates are closed, we must go out of the garden, dear. And you"--he looked at her with yearning eyes--"must forgive me, before we part."

"Perhaps we are not going to part," she said.

He shook his head. He would not deceive her. "Nothing else is possible," he said.

"Perhaps, and perhaps not. At any rate," putting her hands in his, and looking at him with brave, loving eyes, "I would not undo one of those days--in the garden! No, nor an hour of them. They are precious to me.

And for forgiving, I have nothing to forgive and nothing to regret, if we never meet again, Clement. But we shall meet. What if you have to begin the world again? We are both young. You will work for me. And do you think that I will not wait for you, wait until you have climbed up again, or until something happens to bring us together? Do you not know that I love you more now, far more, in your unhappiness--that you are more to me, a thousand times more to-day--than in your prosperity?"

"Oh, Jos!" He could say no more, but his swimming eyes spoke for him.

"But you must leave it to me now," she continued. "After all, things may turn out better than you think. You may not be ruined. People may not be so foolish as to want all their money at once. Have hope, and--and remember that I am always here, though you do not see me or hear from me; that I am always here, thinking of you, waiting for you, loving you, always yours, Clement, till you come--though it be ten years hence."

"Oh, Jos!" His eyes were overflowing now.

"You believe me, you do believe me, don't you?" she said. "And now you must go. But kiss me first. No, I do not mind who sees us, or who knows that I am yours now. I am past that."

He took her in his arms and kissed her, not as he would have kissed her an hour before, with pa.s.sion, but in reverence and humility, in love too sacred for words. Never till now had he known what a woman's love was, how much it gave, how little it asked, how pure in its highest form it could be--and how strong! Nor ever till now had he known her, this girl to whom he had once presumed to teach firmness, whose weakness he had taken on himself to guide, whom he had thought to encourage, to strengthen, to arm--he, who had not been worthy to kiss the hem of her robe!

Oh, the wonderful power of love, which had transformed her! Which had made her what she was, and now laid him in the dust before her!

Work for her, wait for her, live for her? Ah, would he not, and deem himself happy though the years brought him no nearer, though the memory of her, transfiguring his whole life, proved his only and full reward!

CHAPTER XXIX

An hour after Arthur had left the house on the Monday morning Josina went slowly up the stairs to her father's room. She was young and the stairs were shallow, but the girl's knees shook under her as she mounted them, as she mounted them one by one, while her hand trembled on the banister. Before now the knees of brave men, going on forlorn hopes, have shaken under them, but, like these men, Josina went on, she ascended step by step. She was frightened, she was horribly frightened, but she had made a vow to herself and she would carry it out. How she would carry it out, how she would find words to blurt out the truth, how she would have the courage to live through that which would follow, she did not know, she could not conceive. But her mind was fixed.

She reached the shabby landing on which two or three sheep-skins laid at the doors of the rooms served for carpet, and there, indeed, she paused awhile and pressed her hand to her side to still the beating of her heart. She gazed through the window. On the sweep below, Calamy was shaking out the cloth, while two or three hens clucked about his feet, and a cat seated at a distance watched the operation with dignity. In the field beyond the brook a dog barked joyously as it rounded up some sheep. Miss Peac.o.c.k's voice, scolding a maid, came up from below. All was going on as usual, going on callous and heedless: while she--she had that before her which turned her sick and faint, which for her, timid and subject, was almost worse than death.

And with her on this forlorn hope went no comrades, no tramp of marching feet, no watching eyes of thousands, no bugle note to cheer her. Only Clement's shade--waiting.

She might still draw back. But when she had once spoken there could be no drawing back. A voice whispered in her ear that she had better think it over--just once more, better wait a little longer to see if aught would happen, revolve it once again in her mind. Possibly there might be some other, some easier, some safer way.

But she knew what that whisper meant, and she turned from the window and grasped the handle of the door. She went in. Her father was sitting beside the fire. His back was towards her, he was smoking his after-breakfast pipe. She might still retreat, or--or she might say what she liked, ask perhaps if he wanted anything. He would never suspect, never conceive in his wildest moments the thing that she had come to confess. It was not too late even now--to draw back.

She went to the other side of the table on which his elbow rested, and she stood there, steadying herself by a hand which she laid on the table. She was sick with fear, her tongue clung to her mouth, her very lips were white. But she forced herself to speak. "Father, I have something--to tell you," she said.

"Eh?" He turned sharply. "What's that?" She had not been able to control her voice, and he knew in a moment that something was wrong.

"What ha' you been doing?"

Now! Now, or never! The words she had so often repeated to herself rang in her ears. "Do you know who it was," she said, "who saved you that night, sir? The night you were--hurt?"