_"We should consider well what we are keeping back our strength for, if we refuse to put the whole of it into our work."_
She and Mr. Alwynn walked on in silence; and after a time, always afraid of speaking much on the subject that was first in his own mind, he began to talk again on trivial matters, to tell her how he had met Dare that morning, and had promised on her behalf that she would sing at a little local concert which the Vandon school-master was getting up that week to defray the annual expense of the Vandon cricket club, and in which Dare was taking a vivid interest.
"You won"t mind singing, will you, Ruth?" asked Mr. Alwynn, wishing she would show a little more interest in Dare and his concert.
"Oh no, of course not," rather hurriedly. "I should be glad to help in any way."
"And I thought, my dear, as it would be getting late, we had better accept his offer of staying the night at Vandon."
Ruth a.s.sented, but so absently that Mr. Alwynn dropped the subject with a sigh, and walked on, revolving weighty matters in his mind. They had left the woods now, and were crossing the field where, two months ago, the school-feast had been held. Mr. Alwynn made some slight allusion to it, and then coughed. Ruth"s attention, which had been distracted, came back in a moment. She knew her uncle had something which he did not like, something which yet he felt it his duty to say, when he gave that particular cough.
"That was when you were staying with the Danvers, wasn"t it, Ruth?" in a would-be casual, disengaged tone.
"Yes; I came over from Atherstone with Molly Danvers."
"I remember," said Mr. Alwynn, looking extremely uncomfortable; "and--if I am not mistaken--ahem! Sir Charles Danvers was staying there at the same time?"
"Certainly he was."
"Yes, and I dare say, Ruth--I am not finding fault, far from it--I dare say he made himself very agreeable for the time being?"
"I don"t think he made himself so. I should have said he was naturally so, without any effort, just as some people are naturally the reverse."
"Indeed! Well, I have always heard he was most agreeable; but I am afraid--I think perhaps it is just as well you should know--forewarned is forearmed, you know--that, in fact, he says a great deal more than he means sometimes."
"Does he? I dare say he does."
"He has a habit of appearing to take a great interest in people, which I am afraid means very little. I dare say he is not fully aware of it, or I am sure he would struggle against it, and we must not judge him; but still, his manner does a great deal of harm. It is peculiarly open to misconstruction. For instance," continued Mr. Alwynn, making a rush as his courage began to fail him, "it struck me, Ruth, the other day--Sunday, was it? Yes, I think it _was_ Sunday--that really he had not much to ask me about his week-day services. I--ahem! I thought he need not have called."
"I dare say not."
"But now, that is just the kind of thing he _does_--calls, and, er--under chestnut-trees, and that sort of thing--and how _are_ young people to know unless their elders tell them that it is only his way, and that he has done just the same ever so often before?"
"And will again," said Ruth, trying to keep down a smile. "Is it true (Mabel is full of it) that he is engaged, or on the point of being so, to one of Lord Hope-Acton"s daughters?"
"People are always saying he is engaged, to first one person and then another," said Mr. Alwynn, breathing more freely now that his duty was discharged. "It often grieves me that your aunt mentions his engagement so confidently to friends, because it gives people the impression that we know, and we really don"t. He is a great deal talked about, because he is such a conspicuous man in the county, on account of his wealth and his place, and the odd things he says and does. There is something about him that is different from other people. I am sure I don"t know why it is, but I like him very much myself. I have known him do such kind things. Dear me! What a pleasant week I had at Stoke Moreton last year. It is beautiful, Ruth; and the collection of old papers and ma.n.u.scripts unique! Your aunt was in Devonshire with friends at the time. I wish he would ask me again this autumn, to see those charters of Edward IV."s reign that have been found in the secret drawer of an old cabinet. I hear they are quite small, and have green seals. I wish I had thought of asking him about them on Sunday. If they are really small--but it was only Archdeacon Eldon who told me about them, and he never sees anything any particular size--if they should happen to be really small--" And Mr. Alwynn turned eagerly to the all-engrossing subject of the Stoke Moreton charters, which furnished him with conversation till they reached home.
_"We should consider well what we are keeping back our strength for, if we refuse to put the whole of it into our work."_
All through the afternoon and the quiet, monotonous evening these words followed Ruth. She read them between the lines of the book she took up.
She st.i.tched them into her sewing. They went up-stairs with her at night, they followed her into her room, and would not be denied. When she had sent away her maid, she sat down by the window, and, with the full harvest-moon for company, faced them and asked them what they meant. But they only repeated themselves over and over again. What had they to do with her? Her mind tried to grapple with them in vain. As often as she came to close quarters with them they eluded her and disappeared, only to return with the old formula.
Her thoughts drifted away at last to what Mr. Alwynn had said of Charles, and all the disagreeable things which Mabel had come up on Monday morning, with a bunch of late roses, on purpose to tell her respecting him. She had taken Mabel"s information at its true worth, which I fear was but small; but she felt annoyed that both Mabel and Mr.
Alwynn should have thought it necessary to warn her. As if, she said to herself, she had not known! Really, she had not been born and bred in Slumberleigh, nor had she lived there all her life. She had met men of that kind before. She always liked them. Charles especially amused her, and she could see that she amused him; and, now she came to think of it, she supposed he had paid her a good deal of attention at Atherstone, and perhaps he had not come over to Slumberleigh especially to see Mr.
Alwynn. It was as natural to men like Charles to be always interested in some one, as it would be unnatural in others ever to be so, except as the result of long forethought, and with a wedding-ring and a set of bridesmaids well in view. But to attach any importance to the fact that Charles liked to talk to her would have been absurd. With another man it might have meant much; but she had heard of Charles and his misdoings long before she had met him, and knew what to expect. Lord Breakwater"s sister had confided to her many things respecting him, and had wept bitter tears on her shoulder, when he suddenly went off to shoot grizzlies in the Rocky Mountains.
"He has not sufficient vanity to know that he is exceedingly popular,"
said Ruth to herself. "I should think there are few men, handicapped as he is, who have been liked more entirely for themselves, and less for their belongings; but all the time he probably imagines people admire his name, or his place, or his income, and not himself, and consequently he does not care much what he says or does. I am certain he does not mean to do any harm. His manner never deceived me for a moment. I can"t see why it should others; but, from all accounts, he seems to be frequently misunderstood. That is just the right word for him. He is misunderstood. At any rate, I never misunderstood him. That Sunday call might have made me suspicious of any ordinary mortal; but I knew no common rule could apply to such an exception as he is. I only wonder, when he really does find himself in earnest, how he is to convey his meaning to the future Lady Danvers. What words would be strong enough; what ink would be black enough to carry conviction to her mind?"
She smiled at the thought, and, as she smiled, another face rose suddenly before her--Dare"s pale and serious, as it had been of late, with the wistful, anxious eyes. _He_, at least, had meant a great deal, she thought with remorse. _He_ had been in earnest, sufficiently in earnest to make himself very unhappy, and on her account.
Ruth had known for some time that Dare loved her; but to-night that simple, un.o.btrusive fact suddenly took larger proportions, came boldly out of the shadow and looked her in the face.
He loved her. Well, what then?
She turned giddy, and leaned her head against the open shutter.
In the silence the words that had haunted her all the afternoon came back; not loud as heretofore, but in a whisper, speaking to her heart, which had begun to beat fast and loud.
_"We should consider well what we are keeping back our strength for, if we refuse to put the whole of it into our work."_
What work was there for her to do?
The giddiness and the whirl in her mind died down suddenly like a great gust on the surface of a lake, and left it still and clear and cold.
The misery of the world and the inability to meet it had so often confused and weighed her down that she had come back humbly of late to the only possibility with which it was in her power to deal, come back to the well-worn groove of earnest determination to do as much as in her lay, close at hand, when she could find a field to labor in. And now she suddenly saw, or thought she saw, that she had found it. She had been very anxious as to whether Dare would do his duty, but till this moment it had never struck her that it might be _her_ duty to help him.
She liked him; and he was poor--too poor to do much for the people who were dependent on him, the poor, struggling people of Vandon. Their sullen, miserable faces rose up before her, and their crazy houses.
Fever had broken out again in the cottages by the river. He needed help and encouragement, for he had a difficult time before him. And she had these to give, and money too. Could she do better with them? She knew Mr. Alwynn wished it. And as to herself? Was she never going to put self on one side? She had never liked any one very much--at least, not in that way--but she liked him.
The words came like a loud voice in the silence. She liked him. Well, what then?
She shut her eyes, but she only shut out the moon"s pale photographs of the fields and woods. She could not shut out these stern besieging thoughts.
What was she holding back for? For some possible ideal romantic future; for the prince of a fairy story? No? Well, then, for what?
The moon went behind a cloud, and took all her photographs with her. The night had turned very cold.
"To-morrow," said Ruth to herself, rising slowly; "I am too tired to think now. To-morrow!"
And as she spoke the faint chime of the clock upon her table warned her that already it was to-morrow.
And soon, in a moment, as it seemed to her, before she had had time to think, it was again to-morrow, a wet, dim to-morrow, and she was at Vandon, running up the wide stone steps in the starlight, under Dare"s protecting umbrella, and allowing him to take her wraps from her before the hall fire.
The concert had gone off well. Ruth was pleased, Mr. Alwynn was pleased.
Dare was in a state of repressed excitement, now flying into the drawing-room to see if there were a good fire, as it was a chilly evening; now rushing thence to the dining-room to satisfy himself that all the immense and elaborate preparations which he had enjoined on the cook had been made. Then, Ruth must be shown to her room. Who was to do it? He flew to find the house-keeper, and after repeated injunctions to the house-maid, whom he met in the pa.s.sage, not to forget the hot water, took Mr. Alwynn off to his apartment.
The concert had begun, as concerts always seem to do, at the exact time at which it is usual to dine, so that it was late before the princ.i.p.al performers and Mr. Alwynn reached Vandon. It was later still before supper came, but when it came it was splendid. Dare looked with anxious satisfaction, over a soup tureen, at the various spiced and glazed forms of indigestion, sufficient for a dozen people, which covered the table.
It grieved him that Ruth, confronted by a spreading ham, and Mr. Alwynn, half hidden by a bowlder of turkey, should have such moderate appet.i.tes.
But at least she was there, under his roof, at his table. It was not surprising that he could eat nothing himself.
After supper, Mr. Alwynn, who combined the wisdom of the worldly serpent with the harmlessness of the clerical dove, fell--not too suddenly--asleep by the fire in the drawing-room, and Ruth and Dare went into the hall, where the piano was. Dare opened it and struck a few minor chords. Ruth sat down in a great carved arm-chair beside the fire.
The hall was only lighted by a few tall lamps high on pedestals against the walls, which threw great profiles of the various busts upon the dim ba.s.s-reliefs of twining scroll-work; and Dare, with his eyes fixed on Ruth, began to play.
There is in some music a strange appeal beyond the reach of words. Those mysterious sharps and flats, and major and minor chords, are an alphabet that in some occult combinations forms another higher language than that of speech, a language which, as we listen, thrills us to the heart.
It was an old piano, with an impediment in its speech, out of the yellow notes of which Ruth could have made nothing; but in Dare"s hands it spoke for him as he never could have spoken for himself.