"My dear Georgina, are you quite sure he meant it? Young men, nowadays, say so many things without exactly knowing why,--more especially after a dance, as I have been told."
"I am quite sure," says Georgie, flushing hotly. She has sufficient self-love to render this doubt very unpalatable.
Something that is not altogether remote from envy creeps into Mrs.
Redmond"s heart. Being a mother, she can hardly help contrasting her Cissy"s future with the brilliant one carved out for her governess.
Presently, however, being a thoroughly good soul, she conquers these unworthy thoughts, and when next she speaks her tone is full of heartiness and honest congratulation. Indeed, she is sincerely pleased. The fact that the future Lady Sartoris is at present an inmate of her house is a thought full of joy to her.
"You are a very happy and a very fortunate girl," she says, gravely.
"Indeed yes, I think so," returns Georgie, in a low tone, but with perfect calmness. There is none of the blushing happiness about her that should of right belong to a young girl betrothed freshly to the lover of her heart.
"Of course you do," says Mrs. Redmond, missing something in her voice, though she hardly knows what. "And what we are to do without you, I can"t conceive; no one to sing to us in the evening, and we have got so accustomed to that."
"I can still come and sing to you sometimes," says Georgie, with tears in her eyes and voice.
"Ah, yes,--sometimes. That is just the bad part of it; when one has known an "always," one does not take kindly to a "sometimes." And now here come all my governess troubles back upon my shoulders once more.
Don"t think me selfish, my dear, to think of that just now in the very morning of your new happiness, but really I can"t help it. I have been so content with you, it never occurred to me others might want you too."
"I will ask Clarissa to get you some one else nicer than me," says Georgie, soothingly.
"Will you? Yes, do, my dear: she will do anything for you. And, Georgina,"--from the beginning she has called her thus,--nothing on earth would induce Mrs. Redmond to call her anything more frivolous,--"tell her I should prefer somebody old and ugly, if at all bearable, because then she may stay with me. Dear, dear! how Cissy will miss you! And what will the vicar say?"
And so on. She spends the greater part of the morning rambling on in this style, and then towards the evening despatches Georgie to Gowran to tell Clarissa, too, the great news.
But Clarissa knows all about it before her coming, and meets her in the hall, and kisses her then and there, and tells her she is so glad, and it is the very sweetest thing that could possibly have happened.
"He came down this morning very early and told me all about it," she says, looking as pleased as though it is her own happiness and not another"s she is discussing.
"Now, what a pity!" says Georgie: "and I did so want to tell you myself, after the disgraceful way in which you tried to wed me to Mr.
Hastings."
"He could not sleep; he confessed that to me. And you had forbidden him to go to the vicarage to see you to-day. What else then could he do but come over and put in a good time here? And he did. We had quite a splendid time," says Miss Peyton, laughing; "I really don"t know which of us was the most delighted about it. We both kept on saying pretty things about you all the time,--more than you deserved, I think."
"Now, don"t spoil it," says Georgie: "I am certain I deserved it all, and more. Well, if he didn"t sleep, I did, and dreamed, and dreamed, and dreamed all sorts of lovely things until the day broke. Oh, Clarissa,"--throwing out her arms with a sudden swift gesture of pa.s.sionate relief,--"I am free! Am I not lucky, fortunate, to have deliverance sent so soon?"
"Lucky, fortunate;" where has the word "happy" gone, that she has forgotten to use it? Clarissa makes no reply. Something in the girl"s manner checks her. She is standing there before her, gay, exultant, with all a child"s pleasure in some new possession; "her eyes as stars of twilight fair," flashing warmly, her whole manner intense and glad; but there are no blushes, no shy half-suppressed smiles, there is no word of love; Dorian"s name has not been mentioned, except as a secondary part of her story, and then with the extremest unconcern.
Yet there is nothing in her manner that can jar upon one"s finer feelings; there is no undue exultation at the coming great change in her position,--no visible triumph at the fresh future opening before her; it is only that in place of the romantic tenderness that should accompany such a revelation as she has been making, there has been nothing but a wild pa.s.sionate thankfulness for freedom gained.
"When are you coming to stay with me altogether?--I mean until the marriage?" asks Clarissa, presently.
"I cannot leave Mrs. Redmond like that," says Georgie, who is always delightfully indefinite. "She will be in a regular mess now until she gets somebody to take my place. I can"t leave her yet."
"Dorian will not like that."
"He must try to like it. Mrs. Redmond has been very good to me, and I couldn"t bear to make her uncomfortable. I shall stay with her until she gets somebody else. I don"t think, when I explain it to him, that Dorian will mind my doing this."
"He will think it very sweet of you," says Clarissa, "considering how you detest teaching, and that."
While they are at tea, Dorian drops in, and, seeing the little yellow-haired fairy sitting in the huge lounging-chair, looks so openly glad and contented that Clarissa laughs mischievously.
"Poor Bened.i.c.k!" she says, mockingly: "so it has come to this, that you know no life but in your Beatrice"s presence!"
"Well, that"s hardly fair, I think," says Brans...o...b..; "you, at least, should not be the one to say it, as you are in a position to declare I was alive and hearty at half-past twelve this morning."
"Why, so you were," says Clarissa, "terribly alive,--but only on one subject. By the by, has any one seen papa lately? He had some new books from town to-day,--some painfully _old_ books, I mean,--and has not been found since. I am certain he will be discovered some day buried beneath ancient tomes; perhaps, indeed, it will be this day.
Will you two forgive me if I go to see if it is yet time to dig him out?"
They forgive her; and presently find themselves alone.
"Is it all true, I wonder?" says Dorian, after a little pause. He is holding her hand, and is looking down at her with a fond sweet smile that betrays the deep love of his heart.
"Quite true; at least, I hope so," with an answering smile. Then, "I am so glad you are going to marry me," she says, without the faintest idea of shyness; "more glad than I can tell you. Ever since--since I was left alone, I have had no one belonging to me,--that is, no one quite my own; and now I have you. You will always be fonder of me than of anybody else in the world, won"t you?"
She seems really anxious as she asks this.
"My darling, of course I shall. How could you ask me such a question?
And you, Georgie, do you love me?"
"Love you? Yes, I suppose so; I don"t know,"--with decided hesitation.
"I am certain I like you very, very much. I am quite happy when with you, and you don"t bore me a bit. Is that it?"
This definition of what love _may_ be, hardly comes up to the mark in Mr. Brans...o...b.."s estimation.
She has risen, and is now looking up at him inquiringly, with eyes earnest and beautiful and deep, but so cold. They chill him in spite of his efforts to disbelieve in their fatal truthfulness.
"Hardly, I think," he says, with an attempt at gayety. "Something else is wanting, surely. Georgie, when I asked you to marry me yesterday, and when you gave the promise that has made me so unutterably happy ever since, what was it you thought of?"
"Well, I"ll tell you," says Miss Broughton, cheerfully. "First, I said to myself, "Now I shall never again have to teach Murray"s Grammar.""
"Was that your _first_ thought?" He is both surprised and pained.
"Yes, my very first. You look as if you didn"t believe me," says Miss Broughton, with a little laugh. "But if you had gone through as many moods and tenses as I have during the past week, you would quite understand. Well, then I thought how good it would be to have nothing to do but amuse myself all day long. And then I looked at you, and felt so glad you had no crooked eyes, or red hair, or anything that way. And then, above all things, I felt how sweet it was to know I had found somebody who would have to look after me and take care of me, so that I need never trouble about myself any more."
"Did you never once think of me?" asks he, in a curious tone.
"Of you? Oh, no! You are quite happy," says Georgie, with a sigh. "You have nothing to trouble you."
"Nothing! Of course not." Going up to her, he takes her dear little face between both his hands, and looks long and earnestly into her clear unconscious eyes. How gladly would he have seen them droop and soften beneath his gaze! "Now let me tell you how I feel towards you,"
he says, smoothing her soft hair back from her forehead.
"I don"t think I am a bit pretty with my hair pushed back," she says, moving away from the caressing hand, and, with a touch, restoring her "amber locks" to their original position. She smiles as she says this,--indeed, ill temper, in any form, does not belong to her,--and, when her hair is once more restored to order, she again slips her fingers into his confidingly, and glances up at him. "Now tell me all about it," she says.
"What am I to tell you?--that when I am away from you I am restless, miserable; when with you, more than satisfied. I know that I could sit for hours contentedly with this little hand in mine" (raising it to his lips), "and I also know that, if fate so willed it, I should gladly follow you through the length and breadth of the land. If you were to die, or--or forsake me, it would break my heart. And all this is because I love you."
"Is it?"--in a very low tone. "Does all that mean being in love?
Then"--in a still lower tone--"I know I am not one bit in love with _you_."