Heriot's Choice Part 76

'I CANNOT SING THE OLD SONGS'

'Ask me no more: what answer should I give?

I love not hollow cheek or faded eye: Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die!

Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live; Ask me no more.

'Ask me no more; thy fate and mine are seal'd: I strove against the stream and all in vain: Let the great river take me to the main: No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield; Ask me no more.'

Tennyson's _Princess_.

Richard had promised to pay them another visit shortly, and one Sat.u.r.day evening while Polly and Sue were racing each other among the gravel-pits and the furze-bushes of the people's great common, and the lights twinkled merrily in the Vale of Health, and the s.h.i.+fting mist shut out the blue distances of Harrow and Pinner, Mildred was charmed as well as startled by the sound of his voice in the hall.

'Well, Rex, you are getting on famously, I hear; thanks to Aunt Milly's nursing,' was his cheerful greeting.

Roy shook his head despondingly.

'I should do better if I could see something different from these four walls,' he returned, with a discontented glance round the room that Mildred had made so bright and pretty; 'it is absurd keeping me moped up here, but Aunt Milly is inexorable.'

Mildred smiled over her boy's peevishness.

'He does not know what is good for him,' she returned, gently; 'he always gets restless towards evening. Dr. Blenkinsop has been most strict in bidding me keep him from excitement and not to let him talk with any one. This is the first day he has withdrawn his prohibition, and Roy has been in his tantrums ever since.'

'He said I might go downstairs if only I were spared the trouble of walking,' grumbled Roy, who sometimes tyrannised over Aunt Milly--and dearly she loved such tyranny.

'He is more like a spoiled child than ever,' she said, laughing.

'If that be all, the difficulty is soon obviated. I can carry him easily,' returned Richard, looking down a little sadly at the long gaunt figure before him, looking strangely shrunken in the brilliant dressing-gown that was Roy's special glory; 'but I must be careful, you look thin and brittle enough to break.'

'May he, Aunt Milly? Oh, I do so long to see the old studio again, and the couch is so much more comfortable than this,' his eyes beginning to s.h.i.+ne with excitement and his colour varying dangerously.

'Is it quite prudent, Richard?' she asked, hesitatingly. 'Had we not better wait till to-morrow?' but Roy's eagerness overbore her scruples.

Polly little knew what surprise was in store for her. Her race over, she walked along soberly, wondering how she should occupy herself that evening. She, too, knew that Dr. Blenkinsop's prohibition had been removed, and had chafed a little restlessly when Mildred had asked her to be patient till the next day. 'Aunt Milly is too careful; she does not think how I long to see him,' she said, as she walked slowly home. A light streamed across the dark garden when she reached The Hollies; a radiance of firelight and lamplight. 'I wonder if Richard has come,'

thought Polly, as she stole into the little pa.s.sage and gently opened the door.

Yes, Richard was there; his square, thick-set figure blocking up the fireplace as he leant in his favourite att.i.tude against the mantelpiece; and there was Aunt Milly, smiling as though something pleased her. And yes, surely that was Roy's wraith wrapped in the gorgeous dressing-gown and supported by pillows.

The blood rushed to the girl's face as she stood for a moment as though spell-bound, but at the sound of her half-suppressed exclamation he turned his head feebly and looked at her.

'Polly' was all he said, but at his voice she had sprung across the room, and as he stretched out his thin hand to her with an attempt at his old smile, a low sob had risen to her lips, and, utterly overcome by the spectacle of his weakness, she buried her face in his pillows.

Roy's eyes grew moist with sympathy.

'Don't cry, Polly--don't; I cannot bear it,' he whispered, faintly.

'Don't, Polly; try to control yourself; this agitation is very bad for him;' and Richard raised her gently, for a deadly pallor had overspread Roy's features.

'I could not help it,' she returned, drying her eyes, 'to see him lying there looking so ill. Oh, Rex! it breaks my heart,' and the two young creatures almost clung together in their agitation; and, indeed, Roy's hollow blue eyes and thin, bloodless face had a spectral beauty that was absolutely startling.

'I never thought you would mind so much, Polly,' he said, tremulously; and the poor lad looked at her with an eagerness that he could not disguise. 'I hardly dared to expect that you could waste so much time and thought on me.'

'Oh, Rex, how can you say such unkind things; not care--and I have been fretting all this time?'

'That was hardly kind to Heriot, was it?' he said, watching her, and a strange vivid light shone in his eyes. If she had not known before she must have felt then how he loved her; a sudden blush rose to her cheek as he mentioned Dr. Heriot's name; involuntarily she moved a little away from him, and Roy's head fell back on the pillow with a sigh.

Neither of them seemed much disposed for speech after that. Roy lay back with closed eyes and knitted brows, and Polly sat on a low chair watching the great spluttering log and showers of sparks, while Mildred and Richard talked in undertones.

Now and then Roy opened his eyes and looked at her--at the dainty little figure and sweet, thoughtful face; the firelight shone on the s.h.i.+elding hand and half-hoop of diamonds. He recognised the ribbon she wore; he had bought it for her, as well as the little garnet ring he had afterwards voted as rubbish. The sight angered him. He would claim it again, he thought. She should wear no gifts of his; the diamonds had overpowered his garnets, just as his poor little love had been crushed by Dr. Heriot's fascination. Adonis, with his sleepy blue eyes and fair moustache and velvet coat, had failed in the contest with the elder man.

What was he, after all, but a beggarly artist? No wonder she despised his sc.r.a.ps of ribbon, his paltry gewgaws, and odds and ends of rubbish.

'And yet if I had only had my chance,' he groaned within himself, 'if I had wooed her, if I had compelled her to understand my meaning.' And then his anger melted, as she raised her clear, honest eyes, and looked at him.

'Are you in pain, Rex?--can I move your pillows?' bending over him rather timidly. Poor children! a veil of reserve had fallen between them since Dr. Heriot's name had been mentioned, and she no longer spoke to him with the old fearlessness.

'No, I am not in pain. Come here, Polly; you have not begun to be afraid of me since--since I have been ill?' rather moodily.

'No, Rex, of course not.' But she faltered a little over her words.

'Sit down beside me for a minute. What was it you called me in your letter, before I was ill? Something--it looked strangely written by your hand, Polly.'

'Brother--my dear brother Rex,' almost inaudibly.

'Ah, I remember. It would have made me smile, only I was not in the humour for smiling. I did not write back to my sister Polly though.

Richard calls you his little sister very often, does he not?'

'Yes, and I love to hear him say it,' very earnestly.

'Should you love it if I called you that too?' he returned, with an involuntary curl of the lip. 'Pshaw! This is idle talk; but sick people will have their fancies. I have one at present. I want you not to wear that rubbish any more,' touching her hand lightly.

'Oh, Rex--the ring you gave me?' the tears starting to her eyes.

'I never threw a flower away the gift of one that cared for me,' he replied, with a weak laugh. '"I never had a dear gazelle but it was sure to marry the market-gardener." Do you remember d.i.c.k Swiveller, Polly, and the many laughs we have had over him in the old garden at home? Oh, those days!' checking himself abruptly, for fear the pent-up bitterness might find vent.

'Children, you are talking too much,' interposed Mildred's warning voice, not slow to interpret the rising excitement of Roy's manner.

'One minute more, Aunt Milly,' he returned, hastily; then, dropping his voice, 'The gift must go back to the giver. I don't want you to wear that ugly little ring any longer, Polly.'

'But I prize it so,' she remonstrated. 'If I give it back to you, you will throw it in the fire, or trample on it.'

'On my honour, no; but I can't stand seeing you wear such rubbish. I will keep it safely--I will indeed, Polly. Do please me in this.' And Polly, who had never refused him anything, drew off the shabby little ring from her finger and handed it to him with downcast eyes. Why should he ask from her such a sacrifice? Every ribbon and every flower he had given her she had h.o.a.rded up as though they were of priceless value, and now he had taken from her her most cherished treasure. And Polly's lip quivered so that she could hardly bid him good-night.

Richard, who saw the girl was fretting, tried by every means in his power to cheer her. He threw on another log, placed her little basket-work chair in the most inviting corner, showed her the different periodicals he had brought from Oxford for Roy's amus.e.m.e.nt, and gave her lively sketches of undergraduate life. Polly showed her interest very languidly; she was mourning the loss of her ring, and thinking how much her long-desired interview with Roy had disappointed her. Would he never be the same to her again? Would this sad misunderstanding always come between them?

How was it she was clinging to him with the old fondness till he had mentioned Dr. Heriot's name, and then their hands had fallen asunder simultaneously?

'Poor Roy, and poor, poor Polly!' she thought, with a self-pity as new as it was painful.

'You are not listening to me, Polly. You are tired, my dear,' Richard said at last, in his kind fraternal way.

'No, I am very rude. But I cannot help thinking of Rex; how ill he is, and how terribly wasted he looks!'