"My Dear Bessie,--Wish me joy. I have gone in for the uncroquetable lawn, and won it.--Your affectionate brother',
"A. C. Keith."
CHAPTER XXIII. DEAR ALEXANDER.
"I pray thee now tell me, for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?"--Much Ado about Nothing.
"Alick, is this all chivalry?" inquired Colonel Keith, sitting by his fire, suffering considerably from his late drive, and hearing reports that troubled him.
"Very chivalrous, indeed! when there's an old county property to the fore."
"For that matter, you have all been canny enough to have means enough to balance all that barren moorland. You are a richer man than I shall ever be."
"Without heiress-hunting?" said Alick, as though weighing his words.
"Come, Alick, you need not put on a mask that does not fit you! If it is not too late, take the risk into consideration, for I own I think the price of your championship somewhat severe."
"Ask Miss Williams."
"Ermine is grateful for much kindness, and is--yes--really fond of her."
"Then, Colonel, you ought to know that a sensible woman's favourable estimate of one of her own sex outweighs the opinion men can form of her."
"I grant that there are fine qualities; but, Alick, regarding you, as I must necessarily do, from our former relations, you must let me speak if there is still time to warn you, lest your pity and sense of injustice should be entangling you in a connexion that would hardly conduce to make you happy or popular."
"Popularity is not my line," said Alick, looking composedly into the fire.
"Tell me first," said the puzzled Colonel, "are you committed?"
"No one can be more so."
"Engaged!!!"
"I thought you would have known it from themselves; but I find she has forbidden her mother to mention it till she has seen me again. And they talk of quiet, and shut me out!" gloomily added Alick.
The Colonel conceived a hope that the lady would abjure matrimony, and release this devoted knight, but in a few moments Alick burst out--
"Absurd! She cannot mend with anything on her mind! If I could have seen Mrs. Curtis or Grace alone, they might have heard reason, but that old woman of a doctor was prosing about quiet and strain on the nerves. I know that sort of quiet, the best receipt for distraction!"
"Well, Alick," said his friend, smiling, "you have at least convinced me that your heart is in the matter."
"How should it not be " returned Alick.
"I was afraid it was only with the object of unjust vituperation."
"No such thing. Let me tell you, Colonel, my heart has been in it ever since I felt the relief of meeting real truth and unselfishness! I liked her that first evening, when she was manfully chasing us off for frivolous danglers round her cousin! I liked her for having no conventionalities, fast or slow, and especially for hating heroes! And when my sister had helped to let her get into this intolerable web, how could I look on without feeling the nobleness that has never shifted blame from herself, but bowed, owned all, suffered--suffered- -oh, how grievously!"
The Colonel was moved. "With such genuine affection you should surely lead her and work upon her! I trust you will be able."
"It is less that," said Alick, rather resentfully, "than sympathy that she wants. Nobody ever gave her that except your Ermine! By-the-bye, is there any news of the brother?"
Colonel Keith shook his head. "I believe I shall have to go to Russia," he said with some dejection.
"After that, reproach one with chivalry," said Alick, lightly. "Nay, I beg your pardon. Shall I take any message down to Mackarel Lane?"
"Are you going?"
"Well, yes, though I hardly ought to venture there till this embargo is taken off; for she is the one person there will be some pleasure in talking to. Perhaps I may reckon you as the same in effect."
The Colonel responded with a less cheerful look than usual, adding, "I don't know whether to congratulate you, Alick, on having to ask no one's consent but your own at your age."
"Especially not my guardian's!" said Alick, with the desired effect of making him laugh.
"No, if you were my son, I would not interfere," he added gravely. "I only feared your not knowing what you were about. I see you do know it, and it merely becomes a question of every man to his taste-- except for one point, Alick. I am afraid there may have been much disturbance of her opinions."
"Surface work," said Alick, "some of the effects of the literature that paints contradiction as truth. It is only skin deep, and makes me wish all the more to have her with my uncle for a time. I wonder whether Grace would let me in if I went back again!"
No, Grace was obdurate. Mr. Frampton had spoken of a nervous fever, and commanded perfect quiescence; and Grace was the less tempted to transgress the order, because she really thought her mother was more in love with "dear Alexander" than Rachel was. Rachel was exceedingly depressed, restless, and feverish, and shrank from her mother's rejoicing, declaring that she was mistaken, and that nothing more must be said. She had never consented, and he must not make such a sacrifice; he would not when he knew better. Nay, in some moods, Rachel seemed to think even the undefined result of the interview an additional humiliation, and to feel herself falling, if not fallen, from her supreme contempt of love and marriage. The hurry, and the consent taken for granted, had certainly been no small elements in her present disturbed and overwhelmed state; and Grace, though understanding the motive, was disposed to resent the over- haste. Calm and time to think were promised to Rachel, but the more she had of both the more they hurt her. She tossed restlessly all night, and was depressed to the lowest ebb by day; but on the second day, ill as she evidently was, she insisted on seeing Captain Keith, declaring that she should never be better till she had made him understand her. Her nurses saw that she was right; and, besides, Mrs. Curtis's pity was greatly touched by dear Alexander's entreaties. So, as a desperate experiment, he was at last allowed to go into the dressing-room, where she was lying on the sofa. He begged to enter alone, only announced by a soft knock, to which she replied with a listless "Come in," and did not look up till she suddenly became conscious of a footfall firmer though softer than those she was used to. She turned, and saw who it was who stood at a window opposite to her feet, drawing up the Venetian blind, from whose teasing divisions of glare and shade she had been hiding her eyes from the time she had come in, fretted by the low continuous tap of its laths upon the shutters. Her first involuntary exclamation was a sigh of relief.
"Oh, thank you. I did not know what it was that was such a nuisance."
"This is too much glare. Let me turn your sofa a little way round from it."
And as he did so, and she raised herself, he shook out her cushions, and substituted a cool chintz covered one for the hot crimson damask on which her head had been resting. "Thank you! How do you know so well?" she said with a long breath of satisfaction.
"By long trial," he said, very quietly seating himself beside her couch, with a stillness of manner that strangely hushed all her throbbings; and the very pleasure of lying really still was such that she did not at once break it. The lull of these few moments was inexpressibly sweet, but the pang that had crossed her so many times in the last two days and nights could not but return. She moved restlessly, and he leant towards her with a soft-toned inquiry what it was she wanted.
"Don't," she said, raising herself. "No, don't! I have thought more over what you said," she continued, as if repeating the sentence she had conned over to herself. "You have been most generous, most noble; but--but," with an effort of memory, "it would be wrong in me to accept such--oh! such a sacrifice; and when I tell you all, you will think it a duty to turn from me," she added, pressing her hands to her temples. "And mind, you are not committed--you are free."