His eyes never left her. He feared to look away, lest he should find the presence of that quiet, graceful figure by his fireside had been a dream, and that he was alone again with the dim lamps, alone with Dante and Cicero and Seneca.
The firelight dwelt ruddily upon her grave clear-cut face and level brows, and upon the folds of her white gown. It touched the slender hands clasped lightly together on her knee, and drew sudden sparks and gleams out of the diamond pin at her throat.
His hands trembled on the keys, and as he looked his heart beat high and higher, loud and louder, till it drowned the rhythm of the music. And as he looked her calm eyes met his.
In another moment he was on his knees beside her, her hands caught in his trembling clasp, and his head pressed down upon them.
"I know," he gasped, "it is no good. You have told me so once. You will tell me so again. I am not good enough. I am not worthy. But I love you; I love you!"
In moments of real feeling the old words hold their own against all modern new-comers. Dare repeated them over and over again in a paroxysm of overwhelming emotion which shook him from head to foot.
Something in his boyish att.i.tude and in his entire loss of self-control touched Ruth strangely. She knew he was five or six years her senior, but at the moment she felt as if she were much older than he, and a sudden vague wish pa.s.sed through her mind that he had been nearer her in age; not quite so young.
"Well?" she said, gently; and he felt her cool, pa.s.sive hands tremble a little in his. Something in the tone of her voice made him raise his head, and meet her eyes looking down at him, earnestly, and with a great kindness in them.
A sudden eager light leaped into his face.
"Will you?" he whispered, breathlessly, his hands tightening their hold of hers. "Will you?"
There was a moment"s pause, in which the whole world seemed to stand quite still and wait for her answer.
"Yes," she said at last, "I will."
"I am glad I did it," she said to herself, half an hour later, as she leaned her tired head against the carved oak chimney-piece in her bedroom, and absently traced with her finger the Latin inscription over the fireplace. "I like him very much. I am glad I did it."
CHAPTER XVI.
For many years nothing had given Mr. Alwynn such heart-felt pleasure as the news Ruth had to tell him, as he drove her back next morning to Slumberleigh, behind Mrs. Alwynn"s long-tailed ponies.
It was a still September morning, with a faint pearl sky and half-veiled silver sun. Pale gleams of sunshine wandered across the busy harvest fields, and burnished the steel of the river.
Decisions of any kind rarely look their best after a sleepless night; but as Ruth saw the expression of happiness and relief that came into her uncle"s face, when she told him what had happened, she felt again that she was glad--very glad.
"Oh, my dear! my dear!"--Mr. Alwynn was driving the ponies first against the bank, and then into the opposite ditch--"how glad I am; how thankful! I had almost hoped, certainly; I wished so much to think it possible; but then, one can never tell. Poor Dare! poor fellow! I used to be so sorry for him. And how much you will be able to do at Vandon among the people. It will be a different place. And it is such a relief to think that the poor old house will be looked after. It went to my heart to see the way it had been neglected. I ventured this morning, as I was down early, to move some of that dear old Worcester farther back into the cabinet. They really were so near the edge, I could not bear to see them; and I found a Sevres saucer, my dear, in the library that belonged to one of those beautiful cups in the drawing-room. I hope it was not very wrong, but I had to put it among its relations. It was sitting with a Delf mug on it, poor thing. Dear me! I little thought then--Really, I have never been so glad about anything before."
After a little more conversation, and after Mr. Alwynn had been persuaded to give the reins to his niece, who was far more composed than himself, his mind reverted to his wife.
"I think, my dear, until your engagement is more settled, till I have had a talk with Dare on the subject (which will be necessary before you write to your uncle Francis), it would be as well not to refer to it before--in fact, not to mention it to Mrs. Alwynn. Your dear aunt"s warm heart and conversational bent make it almost impossible for her to refrain from speaking of anything that interests her; and indeed, even if she does not say anything in so many words, I have observed that opinions are sometimes formed by others as to the subject on which she is silent, by her manner when any chance allusion is made to it."
Ruth heartily agreed. She had been dreading the searching catechism through which Mrs. Alwynn would certainly put her--the minute inquiries as to her dress, the hour, the place; whether it had been "standing up or sitting down;" all her questions of course interwoven with personal reminiscences of "how John had done it," and her own emotion at the time.
It was with no small degree of relief at the postponement of that evil hour that Ruth entered the house. As she did so a faint sound reached her ear. It was that of a musical-box.
"Dear! dear!" said Mr. Alwynn, as he followed her. "It is a fine day.
Your aunt must be ill."
For the moment Ruth did not understand the connection of ideas in his mind, until she suddenly remembered the musical-box, which, Mrs. Alwynn had often told her, was "so nice and cheery on a wet day, or in time of illness."
She hurriedly entered the drawing-room, followed by Mr. Alwynn, where the first object that met her view was Mrs. Alwynn extended on the sofa, arrayed in what she called her tea-gown, a loose robe of blue cretonne, with a large vine-leaf pattern twining over it, which broke out into grapes at intervals. Ruth knew that garment well. It came on only when Mrs. Alwynn was suffering. She had worn it last during a period of entire mental prostration, which had succeeded all too soon an exciting discovery of mushrooms in the glebe. Mr. Alwynn"s heart and Ruth"s sank as they caught sight of it again.
With a dignity befitting the occasion, Mrs. Alwynn recounted in detail the various ways in which she had employed herself after their departure the previous evening, up to the exact moment when she slipped going up-stairs, and sprained her ankle, in a blue and green manner that had quite alarmed the doctor when he had seen it, and compared with which Mrs. Thursby"s gathered finger in the spring was a mere bagatelle.
"Mrs. Thursby stayed in bed when her finger was bad," said Mrs. Alwynn to Ruth, when Mr. Alwynn had condoled, and had made his escape to his study. "She always gives way so; but I never was like that. I was up all the same, my dear."
"I hope it does not hurt very much," said Ruth, anxious to be sympathetic, but succeeding only in being commonplace.
"It"s not only the pain," said Mrs. Alwynn, in the gentle resigned voice which she always used when indisposed--the voice of one at peace with all the world, and ready to depart from a scene consequently so devoid of interest; "but to a person of my habits, Ruth--never a day without going into the larder, and always seeing after the servants as I do--first one duty and then another--and the chickens and all. It seems a strange thing that I should be laid aside."
Mrs. Alwynn paused, as if she had not for the nonce fathomed the ulterior reasons for this special move on the part of Providence, which had crippled her, while it left Ruth and Mrs. Thursby with the use of their limbs.
"However," she continued, "I am not one to repine. Always cheery and busy, Ruth: that is my motto. And now, my dear, if you will wind up the musical-box, and then read me a little bit out of "Texts with Tender Twinings"" (the new floral manual which had lately superseded the "Pearls"), "after that we will start on one of my sc.r.a.p-books, and you shall tell me all about your visit to Vandon."
It was not the time Ruth would have chosen for a _tete-a-tete_ with her aunt. She was longing to be alone, to think quietly over what had happened, and it was difficult to concentrate her attention on pink and yellow calico, and cut out colored royal families, and foreign birds, with a good grace. Happily Mrs. Alwynn, though always requiring attention, was quite content with the half of what she required; and, with the "Buffalo Girls" and the "Danube River" tinkling on the table, conversation was somewhat superfluous.
In the afternoon Dare came, but he was waylaid in the hall by Mr.
Alwynn, and taken into the study before he could commit himself in Mrs.
Alwynn"s presence. Mrs. Thursby and Mabel also called to condole, and a little later Mrs. Smith of Greenacre, who had heard the news of the accident from the doctor. Altogether it was a delightful afternoon for Mrs. Alwynn, who a.s.sumed for the time an air of superiority over Mrs.
Thursby to which that lady"s well-known chronic ill-health seldom allowed her to lay claim.
Mrs. Alwynn and Mrs. Thursby had remained friends since they had both arrived together as brides at Slumberleigh, in spite of a difference of opinion, which had at one time strained friendly relations to a painful degree, as to the propriety of wearing the hair over the top of the ear. The hair question settled, a temporary difficulty, extending over a few years, had sprung up in its place, respecting what Mrs. Thursby called "family." Mrs. Alwynn"s family was not her strong point, nor was its position strengthened by her a.s.sertion (unsupported by Mrs.
Markham), that she was directly descended from Queen Elizabeth.
Consequently, it was trying to Mrs. Thursby--who, as every one knows, was one of the brainless Copleys of Copley--that Mrs. Alwynn, who in the lottery of marriage had drawn an honorable, should take precedence of herself. To obviate this difficulty, Mrs. Thursby, with the ingenuity of her s.e.x, had at one time introduced Mr. and Mrs. Alwynn as "our rector,"
and "our rector"s wife," thus denying them their name altogether, for fear lest its connection with Lord Polesworth should be remembered, and the fact that Mr. Alwynn was his brother, and consequently an honorable, should transpire.
This peculiarity of etiquette entirely escaped Mr. Alwynn, but aroused feelings in the breast of his wife which might have brought about one of those deeply rooted feuds which so often exist between the squire"s and clergyman"s families, if it had not been for the timely and serious illness in which Mrs. Thursby lost her health, and the princ.i.p.al part of the other subject of disagreement--her hair.
Then Queen Elizabeth and the honorable were alike forgotten. With her own hands Mrs. Alwynn made a certain jelly, which Mrs. Thursby praised in the highest manner, saying she only wished that it had been the habit in _her_ family to learn to do anything so useful. Mrs. Thursby"s new gowns were no longer kept a secret from Mrs. Alwynn, to be suddenly sprung upon her at a garden-party, when, possibly in an old garment herself, she was least able to bear the shock. By-gones were by-gones, and, greatly to the relief of the two husbands, their respective wives made up their differences.
"And a very pleasant afternoon it has been," said Mrs. Alwynn, when the Thursbys and Dare, who had been loath to go, had taken their departure.
"Mrs. Thursby and Mabel, and Mrs. Smith and Mr. Dare. Four to tea. Quite a little party, wasn"t it, Ruth? And so informal and nice; and the buns came in as naturally as possible, which no one heard me whisper to James for. I think those little citron buns are nicer than a great cake like Mrs. Thursby"s; and hers are always so black and overbaked. That is why the cook sifts such a lot of sugar over them. I do think one should be real, and not try to cover up things. And Mr. Dare so pleasant. Quite sorry to go he seemed. I often wonder whether it will be you or Mabel in the end. He ought to be making up his mind. I expect I shall have a little joke with him about it before long. And such an interest he took in the sc.r.a.p-book. I asked him to come again to-morrow."
"I don"t expect he will be able to do so," said Mr. Alwynn. "I rather think he will have to go to town on business."
Later in the evening, Mr. Alwynn told Ruth that in the course of his interview he had found that Dare had the very vaguest ideas as to the necessity of settlements; had evidently never given the subject a thought, and did not even know what he actually possessed.
Mr. Alwynn was secretly afraid of what Ruth"s trustee, his brother, Lord Polesworth (now absent shooting in the Rocky Mountains), would say if, during his absence, their niece was allowed to engage herself without suitable provision; and he begged Ruth not "to do anything rash" in the way of speaking of her engagement, until Dare could, with the help of his lawyer, see his way to making some arrangement.
"I know he has no money," said Ruth, quietly; "that is one of the reasons why I am going to marry him."
Mr. Alwynn, to whom this seemed the most natural reason in the world, was not sure whether it would strike his brother with equal force. He had a suspicion that when Lord Polesworth"s attention should be turned from white goats and brown bears to the fact that his niece, who had means of her own, had been allowed to engage herself to a poor man, and that Mr. Alwynn had greatly encouraged the match, unpleasant questions might be asked.
"Francis will be back in November," said Mr. Alwynn. "I think, Ruth, we had better wait till his return before we do anything definite."
"Anything _more_ definite, you mean," said Ruth. "I have been very definite already, I think. I shall be glad to wait till he comes back, if you wish it, Uncle John. I shall try to do what you both advise. But at the same time I am of age; and if my word is worth anything, you know I have given that already."