No word of reply sounded, but the delicate lips quivered and parted; the eyes were cast down, and seemed to swim in a soft mist of brightness; the queenly head bent, and the roseate tint on the cheek deepened and spread, while something came over the face that caused the low glad exclamation, "You sweetest, I do believe you can love me!"
A tremulous smile, a glitter of tears on the eye-lashes--a whisper, "You won"t let me be able to help it!"
Then the hands were clasped, and no words but "Thank you" would come to the young man"s lips ; and then, and the sound reminded him, he bowed his head, adding, "Thank G.o.d!"
"Thank G.o.d!" echoed Wilmet softly. "For indeed," she added, as she let her eyes fully meet his ardent gaze, "I know you will help me to do whatever may be His Will.
"He helping me," said John Harewood; and there was a reverent silence of untold peace and bliss, first interrupted by his long sigh of infinite relief and joy, and then, as he looked and looked with all his soul in his eyes, an exclamation, almost in spite of himself, "You beautiful creature, you are mine indeed!"
Her colour deepened, but her lips moved into an odd little smile, out of which came the words, "Isn"t that rather foolish?"
"I couldn"t help it--I beg your pardon," said he, reddening. "You do look so lovely! but indeed it is not the externals only, but what looks through."
"And that is what makes me afraid," said Wilmet, as the dew gathered on her eye-lashes. "I don"t think I"m so nice as you take me for."
"Probably you don"t," he said, smiling.
"But just hear me," she said, laying her hand on his, as if to silence him. "You ought to know what all the others would tell you if they were not too kind. I know they all feel me strict, and managing and domineering! Yes, it makes you laugh, but I really am. I don"t think you would have liked me at all if you had not seen me out of my usual life, with only Lance--" and as all she said only made him press her hand the closer-- "You see, I"ve always had to do things.
Ever since I was a little girl I have had to keep order, great boys and all, and I know it has made me disagreeable;" then in answer to some sound more incredulously negative than words, "Yes indeed! Felix and all go to Cherry with whatever comes very near them. She hasn"t been hardened and sharpened and dried like me, and wasn"t stupid to begin with."
"Cherry is very clever, but she is--not--"
"Now don"t. I know how it is. I know I"m horribly pretty, and I"ve been a wonder always for keeping the house going, and doing for them all, and so you fancy me everything charming, but I do so wish you could really know, as my brothers do, how it takes out of one all that is nice and sweet, and that people like."
"People?" said John, smiling; but seeing that a mirthful even though a loving answer was not what she wanted, he gravely said, "I do understand, dearest, that you have had to be too much of an authority to be altogether the companion and confidante that Geraldine is free to be, but perhaps I feel that this renders you more wholly and altogether my own."
"Oh?"--a strange half sob--"do you know, I had just begun to know how solitary I was when Lance was so happy to get Robina, when you--"
"And if I told you all, you would know that I was feeling a certain loneliness at home, and that if you had asked my sisters they would have said that Jack was not the harmonious element he appeared.
There--there"s a pleasing prospect!"
"But you"ll not let me be masterful?" said Wilmet earnestly.
"Just as much as is good for me--for us," he said smiling.
Then after a moment"s silence, he took out of his pocket a little box, and making a table of her lap, took out a ring of twined ruby and diamonds, such as could not but startle the instincts of Wilmet"s soul.
"Oh, it is a great deal too beautiful! Please, I couldn"t--"
"You must. It was my mother"s."
"Then she cannot like to part with it."
"Did you not know that she died when I was five years old? Look!" and he showed where within the lid of the box was written, "For my Little Johnny"s Wife. August 1839. L. H."
"Ought you not to keep it till--" faltered Wilmet, growing crimson as she found what she was saying.
"No," he said decidedly, "not after this. When I spoke to my father that Sunday evening, he unlocked his desk and gave me this, which I had not seen since I remember playing with it on my mother"s bed. You will wear it, dearest. You will let me have the pleasure of knowing you have it on."
The answer was the drawing off of her glove, and he fitted it on, but it was rather loose. "I am afraid it will want a guard," he said.
"I"ll ask Felix whether I may take one of Mamma"s," she said.
For the shapely notable fingers had never worn a ring before this almost sacred pledge; and the few jewels either too valuable or not valuable enough for the parents to have parted with in times of need had never been touched.
"Do," he said; "I shall like that. The year 1839. Was not that the year a certain little girl was born?"
"The month. Our birthday is on the 19th." And the coincidence gave all the foolish delight such facts do under the circ.u.mstances.
"Was this long before she died?" asked Wilmet.
"The last day of that August. You never saw her bra.s.s in the cloister?"
"No; I never guessed that you were not Mrs. Harewood"s son, though I wondered at your being so unlike the rest."
"She has been kindness itself," he warmly said. "My father did well both for himself and me in marrying."
"Tell me of your own mother," said Wilmet, looking from the sparkling stones to the initials. "L.-- What was her name?"
"Lucy. Lucy Oglandby. My father was tutor at Oglandby Hall. There was a long attachment, through much opposition; and even when he was made priest-vicar after waiting six years, her father could not consent.
After six years more, when her health was failing, he gave a sort of sanction on his death-bed. The rest of the family contrived to get her fortune so tied up that after her death it was of no use to any one till I came of age. She only lived seven years after her marriage, and then the Oglandbys wanted to take possession of me, and I fancy that drove my father into marrying."
"Was it with them you went to stay?"
"Yes, my father makes a point of it; and they have a turn for patronising me, if I would turn my back on home."
"Now I understand better," said Wilmet.
You understand how much you were wanting to me," he said, rightly interpreting the words. "After five years" absence, while my sisters were growing up, you can perceive that dear, fond, and hearty as our house is, it did not fulfil all that perhaps I had been rather unreasonable in expecting. O Wilmet, this time of leave would have been very different if you had not come to the precincts!"
And so they fell back on the exquisite time present, which neither wished to disturb by looking beyond; and perhaps John felt as though his bird had scarcely perched, and any endeavours to hold it might make it flutter loose, while she was too glad of the calm and repose to renew the struggle between conflicting claims.
At last, with basket laden with dark fruit, and lips vying with the babes in the wood, Stella was launched on them by Lance, when his sense of time overpowered his half shy, half diverted respect for their bliss. He was very curious, but had to be satisfied with Captain Harewood"s manner of tossing Stella over the style, and bright look at himself.
They did not get into the town till the chimes of half-past seven were pealing. Captain Harewood hurried into the hotel, to prepare for the evening; and Wilmet was mounting the stairs, still under the spell of her newly-found joy, when she was startled by Alda"s voice in a key of querulous anger.
"Exactly like you, always laying out for attention."
"What"s this?" said Wilmet, as she saw Alda in her habit, standing with her back to the open door, and Geraldine leaning on the table, trembling and tearful, crimson and burning even to pa.s.sion in her panting reply, "I don"t know--except that he helped me in from the garden."
"That"s what I say," retorted Alda. "She is always putting herself forward to be interesting and get waited on. All affectation. I don"t know such a flirt anywhere."
"Hush, Alda! you are insulting Cherry," said Wilmet, in her tone of command.
"Take care of yourself, Wilmet," cried Alda; "it is the way she goes on all day with Captain Harewood--reading poetry, and drawing, and all."
"Captain Harewood knows," said Wilmet, coming to the support of the quivering Geraldine, "that the kinder he is to Cherry the better I like it."