"He will sweat some, if he is, for Jerrie is twice as heavy as Peterkin"s daughter;" and at the very idea Tom laughed out loud, thinking that he should greatly prefer to have Jerrie"s strength and weight in his arms to his light, slim, little girl, who neither spoke nor moved until he laughed, and then there came in smothered tones from the region of his vest:
"Oh, Tom, how can you laugh? Do you think it such fun?"
"Fun! Thunder! Anything but fun!" was his gruff reply, as he went on more rapidly now, for they were in the grounds of Le Bateau, and the lights from the house were distinctly visible at no great distance away.
"We are here at last. Thank the Lord." he said, as he went up the steps and pulled sharply at the bell.
"Let me down. I can stand on one foot," Ann Eliza said; and nothing loth Tom put her down, a most forlorn and dilapidated piece of humanity as she stood leaning against him with the light of the piazza lamp falling full upon her.
Her little French boots, which had partly done the mischief, were spoiled, and the heel of one of them had been nearly wrenched off when she stumbled over the stone. Her India muslin, with its sash, and ribbons, and streamers, was torn in places and bedraggled with mud. She had lost her hat in the woods, and the wind and the rain had held high carnival in her loosely-arranged hair, whose color Tom so detested, and which streamed down her back in many little wet tags, giving her the look of a drowned rat after it has been tortured in a trap.
Old Peterkin was reading his evening paper when Tom"s sharp summons sounded through the house, making him jump from the chair, as he exclaimed:
"Jiminy hoe-cakes! Who can that be in this storm?"
He had seen Billy off in the train, and had returned home just as the rain began to fall. Naturally both he and his wife had felt some anxiety on Ann Eliza"s account, but had concluded that if the storm continued she would remain at Gra.s.sy Spring, and if it cleared in time they would send the carriage for her. So neither thought of her when the loud ring came, startling them both so much. It was Peterkin himself who went to the door, gorgeous in a crimson satin dressing gown which came to his feet, but which no amount of pulling would make meet together over his ponderous stomach. An oriental smoking cap was on his head, the big ta.s.sel hanging almost in his eyes, and a half-burned cigar between his fingers.
"Good George of Uxbridge!" he exclaimed, as his eye fell upon Tom, from whose soaked hat the water was dripping, and upon Ann Eliza leaning against him, her pale face quivering with pain, and her eyes full of tears. "George of Uxbridge! What"s up? What ails the girl!"
At sight of her father Ann Eliza began to cry, while Tom said:
"She has sprained her ankle and I had to bring her home. She cannot step."
"Jerusalem hoe-cakes! Spraint her ankle! Can"t step! You bring her home!
Heavens and earth! Here, May Jane, come lively! Here"s a nice how-dy-do!
Ann Liza"s broke her laig, and Tom Tracy"s brung her home!"
As Peterkin talked, he was taking his daughter in his arms and bringing her into the hall, hitting her lame foot against the door, and eliciting from her a cry of pain.
"Oh, father; Oh-h!--it does hurt so. Put me somewhere quick, and take off my boot. I believe I am going to die!"
She was dripping wet, and little puddles of water trailed along the carpet as Peterkin carried her into the sitting room, where he was about to lay her down upon the delicate satin couch, when his wife"s housewifely instincts were roused, and she exclaimed:
"No, father. No, not there, when she"s so wet, and water spots that satin so dreadfully."
"What in thunder shall I do with her? Hold her all night?" Peterkin demanded, while Tom deliberately picked up the costly Turkey hearth rug, and throwing it across the couch, said:
"Put her on that." So Peterkin deposited her upon the rug, hitting her foot again, and sending her off in a dead faint.
"Oh, she"s dead! she"s dead! What shall we do?" Mrs. Peterkin cried, wringing her hands, and walking about excitedly.
"Do?" Peterkin yelled. "Hold your yawp, and stop floppin" round like a hen with her head cut off! She ain"t dead. She"s fainted. Bring some camfire, or alcohol, or hartshorn, or Pond"s Extract, or something for her to smell."
"Yes, yes; but where are they?" Mrs. Peterkin moaned, still flopping around, as her husband had expressed it, while Tom rang the bell and summoned the maid, to whom he gave directions.
"Bring some camphor or hartshorn," he said. "Miss Peterkin has fainted, and get off the boot as soon as possible. Don"t you see how her foot is swelling?"
This to Peterkin, who made a dive at the boot, which resisted all his efforts, even after it was unb.u.t.toned. The leather, which was soaked through, had shrunk so that it was impossible to remove the boot without cutting it away, and this they commenced to do.
Ann Eliza had recovered her consciousness by this time, and although the pain was terrible she bore it heroically, as piece after piece of the boot was removed, together with the silk stocking which left her poor little swollen foot exposed and bare.
"By Jove, she"s plucky!" Tom thought, as he watched the operation and saw the great drops of sweat on Ann Eliza"s forehead and her efforts to quiet her mother, pretending that it did not hurt so very much. "Yes, she"s plucky," and for the first time in his life Tom was conscious of a feeling of something like respect for Peterkin"s red-haired daughter.
"She _has_ a small foot, too; the smallest I ever saw on a woman. I do believe she wears twos," he thought, while something about the little white foot made him think of poor Jack"s dead feet, laid under the gra.s.s years ago.
In this softened frame of mind he at last said good-night, although pressed by Peterkin to stay and dry himself, or at least take a drink as a preventive against cold, but Tom declined both, saying a hot bath would set him all right. "Good-bye, Annie. I"m awful sorry for the sprain," he said, offering her his hand; and as she took it in hers, noticing about the wrist prints of his fingers which had grasped it so tightly and held it so firmly as he dragged her along over stumps, and bogs, and stones, until she sank at his feet, "I guess I was a brute to race her like that," he said to himself, as he went out into the darkness and started for home. "But I didn"t want to go with her. I wanted to be with Jerrie, who, I have no doubt, went straight along, without ever thinking of spraining her ankle, as Ann Eliza did. Poor little foot! How swollen, though, it was when they got that boot off; but she bore it like a major! Pity she has such all-fired red hair, and piles it up like a haystack on the top of her head, with every hair looking six ways for Sunday."
At this point in his soliloquy Tom reached home, and was soon luxuriating in a hot bath, which removed all traces of the soaking he had received. That night he dreamed of Ann Eliza, and how light she was in his arms, and how patient through it all, and that the magnificent rooms at Le Bateau were all frescoed with diamonds and the floors inlaid with gold. Then the nature of his dream changed, and it was Jerry he was carrying in his arms, bending under her weight until his back was nearly broken. But he did not heed it in the least, and when he bent to kiss the face lying upon his bosom, where Ann Eliza had lain, he awoke suddenly to find that it was morning and that the sun was shining brightly into his room.
CHAPTER x.x.xVII.
UNDER THE PINES WITH d.i.c.k.
Jerrie was soaked through, but she did not sprain her ankle as Ann Eliza had done. And yet, had she been given her choice, rather than inflict the pain she did inflict upon poor d.i.c.k, she would have chosen the former unhesitatingly, and felt herself happy in doing it. Like Tom and Ann Eliza, she and d.i.c.k had run when they saw how fast the storm was coming, but it was of no use, for by the time they entered the park, the shortest route to the cottage, the rain came down in torrents, and drenched them to the skin in a few moments. Jerrie"s hat was wrenched off, as Ann Eliza"s had been by the wind, which tossed her long golden hair in a most fantastic fashion. But d.i.c.k put his hat upon her head, and would have given her his coat had she allowed it.
"No, d.i.c.k," she said, laughingly, as she saw him about to divest himself of it. "Keep your coat. I am wet enough without that. But what an awful storm, and how dark it grows. We shall break our necks stumbling along at this rate."
Just then a broad glare of lightning illuminated the darkness, and showed d.i.c.k the four pines close at hand. He knew the place well, for, with the Tracy children, he had often played there when a boy, and knew that the thick bushes would afford them some protection from the storm.
"By Jove, we are in luck!" he said. "Here"s the pine room, as we used to call it when you played you were Marie Antoinette, and had your head cut off. I can remember just how I felt when your white sun-bonnet, with Mrs. Crawford"s false hair pinned it in, dropped into the basket, and how awful it seemed when you played dead so long that we almost thought you were; and when you came to light, the way you imitated the cries of a French mob, I would have sworn there were a hundred voices instead of one yelling: "Down with the n.o.bility!" You were a wonderful actress, Jerrie; and it is a marvel you have not gone upon the stage."
While he talked he was groping for the bench under the pines, where they sat down, d.i.c.k seating himself upon the parasol, which Jerrie had left there that morning after her interview with Tom.
"Hallo! what"s this?" he said, drawing the parasol from under him. "An umbrella, as I live! We are in luck. What good fairy do you suppose left it here for us?"
Jerrie could not tell him that she had left it there, and she said nothing; while he opened and held it so that every drop of rain which slipped from it fell upon her neck and trickled down her back. "Great Caesar! that was a roarer!" d.i.c.k said, as the peal of thunder which had so frightened Ann Eliza burst over their heads, and, echoing through the woods, went bellowing off in the direction of the river, "That"s a stunner! but I rather like it, and like being here, too, with you, if you don"t mind it. I"ve wanted a chance to speak to you alone, ever since--well, ever since this morning, when I saw you in that bewildering costume that showed your feet and your arms so--you know, with that thing like a napkin pinned up in front, and that jimcrack on your head, and the red stockings--and--and--"
d.i.c.k was getting bewildered and did not quite know what he was saying, so he stopped and waited for Jerrie to reply. But Jerrie did not speak, because of the sudden alarm which possessed her. She could not see d.i.c.k"s face, but in his voice she had recognized a tone heard in Tom"s that morning when she sat with him under pines as she was sitting now with d.i.c.k and he had asked her to be his wife. Something told her that d.i.c.k was feeling for her hands, which she resolutely put behind her out of his way, and as he could not find them, he wound his arm around her and held her fast, while he told her how much he loved her and wanted her for his wife.
"I believe I have loved you," he said, "ever since the day I first saw you at the inquest, and you flew so like a little cat at Peterkin when he attacked Harold. I used to be awfully jealous of Hal, for fear he would find in you more than a sister, but that was before he and Maude got so thick together. I guess that"s a sure thing, and it makes me bold to tell you what I have. Why are you so silent Jerrie? Don"t you love me a little? That is all I ask at first, for I know I can make you love me a great deal in time. I will be so kind and true to you. Jerrie, and father, and mother, and Nina will be so glad. Speak to me, Jerrie, and say you will try to love me, if you do not now."
As he talked he had drawn the girl closer to him, where she sat rigid as a stone, wholly unmindful of the little puddles of water--and they were puddles now--running down her back, for d.i.c.k had tilted the parasol in such a manner that one of the points rested upon the nape of her neck.
But she did not know it, or think of any thing except the pain she must inflict upon the young man wooing her so differently from what Tom Tracy had done. No hint had d.i.c.k given of the honor he was conferring upon her, or of his own and his family"s superiority to her family and herself. All the honor and favor to be conferred were on her side; all the love and humility on his, and for one brief moment the wild wish flashed upon her:
"Oh, if I could love him as a wife ought, I might he so happy, for he is all that is n.o.ble and good and true."
But this was while she was smarting under the few words he had said of Harold and Maude. He, too, believed it a settled thing between the two--everybody believed it--and why should she waste her love upon one who did not care for her as she did for him? Why not encourage a love for d.i.c.k, who stood next in her heart to Harold? Questioning herself thus until there flushed upon her the recollection of Harold"s voice as it had spoken to her that morning, and the look in his eyes when they rested upon her, as he said good-bye, lingering a moment as if loth to leave her, and then d.i.c.k"s chance, if he had ever had any, was gone!
"I do not believe it," she said to herself, and then, turning her face to d.i.c.k she cried: "Oh, d.i.c.k, I am so sorry you have said this to me; sorry that you love me--in this way--for I can"t--I can"t--. I do love you as a friend, a brother, next to Harold, but I cannot be your wife. I cannot."
For a moment there was perfect silence in the darkness, and then a lurid flame of lightning showed the two faces--that of the man pale as ashes, with a look of bitter pain upon it, and that of the woman, whiter than the man"s and bathed in upon which fell almost as fast as the rain drops were falling tears, the pines.
Then d.i.c.k spoke, but his voice sounded strange and unnatural and a great ways off:
"If I wait a long, long time--say a year, or two, or three--do you think you could learn to love me just a little? I will not ask for much; only, Jerrie, I do hunger so for you that without you life would seem a blank."
"No, d.i.c.k; not if you waited twenty years. I must still answer no. I cannot love you as your wife should love you, and as some good, sweet girl will one day love you when you have forgotten me."