"He asked me that question, and I told him yes. How can one help it, and he so good? Aunt Milly, you have no idea how kind and gentle he was when he saw he frightened me."
"Frightened you, my child?"
"The strangeness of it all, I mean. I could not understand him for a long time. He talked quite in his old way, and yet somehow he was different; and all at once I found out what he meant."
"Well?"
"And then I got frightened, I suppose. I thought how could I satisfy him, and he so much older and cleverer. He is so immeasurably above all my girlish silliness, and so I could not help crying a little."
"Poor little Polly! but he comforted you."
"Oh yes," with more blushes, "he talked to me so beautifully that I could not be afraid any more. He said that for years this had been in his mind, that he had never forgotten how I had wanted to live with him and take care of him, and how he had always called me "his sweet little heartsease" ever since. Oh, Aunt Milly, I know he wants me. It was so sad to hear him talk about his loneliness."
"You will not let him be lonely any longer. I have lost my Polly, I see."
"No, no, you must not say so," throwing her arm round her, only with a sort of bashful pride, very new in Polly; "he has no one to take care of him but me."
"Then he shall have our Sunbeam--G.o.d bless her!" and Mildred kissed her proudly. "I hope you did not tell him he was old, Polly."
"He asked me if I thought him so, and of course I said it was only I who was too young."
"And what did he say to that?"
"He laughed, and said it was a fault that I should soon mend, but that he meant to be very proud as well as fond of his child-wife. Do you know, he actually thinks me pretty, Aunt Milly."
"He is right; you are pretty--very pretty, Polly," she repeated, absently. She was saying in her own heart "Dr. Heriot"s wife--John Heriot"s child-wife"--over and over again.
"Roy never would tell me so, because he said it would make me vain. Roy will be glad about this, will he not, Aunt Milly?"
"I do not know; nay, I hope so, my darling."
"And Richard, and all of them; they are so fond of Dr. Heriot. Do you remember how often they have joked him about Heriot"s Choice?"
"Yes, I remember."
A sudden spasm crossed Mildred"s gentle face, but she soon controlled herself. She must get used to these sharp pangs, these recollections of the happy, innocent past; she had misunderstood her friend, that was all.
"Dear Aunt Milly, make me worthier of his love," whispered the girl, with tears in her eyes; "he is so n.o.ble, my benefactor, my almost father, and now he is going to make me his wife, and I am so young and childish."
And she clung to Mildred, quivering with vague irrepressible emotion.
"Hush, you will be his sunbeam, as you have been ours. What did he call you--his heartsease? You must keep that name, my pet."
"But--but you will teach me, he thinks so much of you; he says you are the gentlest, and the wisest, and the dearest friend he has ever had.
Where are you going, Aunt Milly?" for Mildred had gently disengaged herself from the girl"s embrace.
"Hush, we ought to go down; you must not keep me any longer, dear Polly; he will expect--it is my duty to see him."
Mildred was adjusting her hair and dress with cold, shaking fingers, while Polly stood by and shyly helped her.
"It does not matter how you look," the girl had said, with innocent unconscious sarcasm; "you are so tired, the tumbled gray alpaca will do for to-night."
"No, it does not matter how I look," replied Mildred, calmly.
A colourless weary face and eyes, with an odd shine and light in them, were reflected between the dimly-burning candles. Polly stood beside her slim and conscious; she had dried her tears, and a sweet honest blush mantled her young cheeks. The little foot tapped half impatiently on the floor.
"You have no ribbons or flowers, but perhaps after all it will not be noticed," she said, with pardonable egotism.
"No, he will have only eyes for you to-night. Come, Polly, I am ready;"
and as the girl turned coy and seemed disposed to linger, Mildred quietly turned to the door.
"I thought I was to be dismissed without your saying good-night to me,"
was Dr. Heriot"s greeting as he advanced to meet them. He was holding Mildred"s cold hand tightly, but his eyes rested on Polly"s downcast face as he spoke.
"We ought to have come before, but I knew you would understand."
"Yes, I understand," he returned, with an expression of proud tenderness. "You will give your child to me, Miss Lambert?"
"She has always seemed to belong to you more than to me," and then she looked up at him for a moment with her old beautiful smile. "I need not ask you to be good to her--you are good to every one; but she is so young, little more than a child."
"You may trust me," he returned, putting his arm gently round the young girl"s shoulders; "there shall not a hair of her head suffer harm if I can prevent it. Polly is not afraid of me, is she?"
"No," replied Polly, shyly; but the bright eyes lifted themselves with difficulty.
She looked after him with a sort of perplexed pride, half-conscious, half-confused, as he released her and bade them all good-night. When he was gone she hovered round Mildred in the old childish way and seemed unwilling to leave her.
"I have done the right thing. Bless her sweet face. I know I shall make her happy," thought Dr. Heriot as he walked with rapid strides across the market-place; "a man cannot love twice in his life as I loved my Margaret, but the peaceful affection such as I can give my darling will satisfy her I know. If only Philip could see into my heart to-night I think he would be comforted for his motherless child." And then again--"How sweetly Mildred Lambert looked at me to-night; she is a good woman, there are few like her. Her face reminded me of some Madonna I have seen in a foreign gallery as she stood with the girl clinging to her. I wonder she has never married; these ministering women lead lonely lives sometimes. Sometimes I have fancied she knew what it is to love, and suffered. I thought so yesterday and again to-day, there was such a ring of sadness in her voice. Perhaps he died, but one cannot tell--women never reveal these things."
And so the benevolent heart sunned itself in pleasant dreams. The future looked fair and peaceful, no brooding complications, no murky clouds threatened the atmosphere, pa.s.sion lay dormant, rest was the chief good to be desired. Could benevolence play him false, could affection be misplaced, would he ever come to own to himself that delusion had cheated him, that husks and not bread had been given him to eat, that his honest yearning heart had again betrayed him, that a kindly impulse, a protecting tenderness, had blinded him to his true happiness?
"How good he is," thought the young girl as she laid her head on the pillow; "how dearly I must love him: I ought to love him. I never imagined any one could be half so gentle. I wonder if Roy will be glad when I tell him--oh yes, I wonder if Roy will be glad?"
CHAPTER XXIII
"AND MAIDENS CALL IT LOVE-IN-IDLENESS"
"Is there within thy heart a need That mine cannot fulfil?
One chord that any other hand Could better wake or still?
Speak now, lest at some future day My whole life wither and decay."
Adelaide Anne Procter.
The news of Dr. Heriot"s engagement soon spread fast; he was amused, and Polly half frightened, by the congratulations that poured upon them. Mr.
Trelawny, restored to something like good humour by the unexpected tidings, made surly overtures of peace, which were received on Dr.
Heriot"s part with his usual urbanity. The Squire imparted the news to his daughter after his own ungracious fashion.