Part 10 (2/2)

I looked at it with awe.

Aunt Emmy answered my highest expectations at every point. I had never seen that enamel locket before. Yet I divined at once that she had worn it under her clothes--as indeed she had, day and night for how many years! I felt that I would not care how it ended, happily or unhappily, if only I might have a romance and a locket like that.

”He gave it me when we parted eighteen years ago,” she said, her voice quivering a little.

I knew well that lovers always did part. They invariably severed, ”severed for years.” I was not the least surprised to hear he was gone, for I was already learning ”In the Gloaming,” and trilled it forth in a thin, throaty voice which Aunt Emmy said was remarkably like what hers had been at my age.

”Why were you parted?” I asked.

”He had not any money, and he had his way to make. And he had an uncle out there who wanted him to go to him. It was a good opening, though he would not have taken it if it had not been for me, for though he was so fond of horses he was not the kind of person for that kind of life, sheep and things. He cared so much for books and poetry. And your Uncle Thomas was very much against my marrying at that time, in fact, he positively forbade it. You see, mother was dead, and your Uncle Thomas had become more dependent on me than he was quite aware until there was a question of my leaving him. Men are like that, my love. They need a woman all the time to look after them, and listen to their talk, and keep vexatious things away. And he was always a most tender father. He said he could not bear the thought of his only daughter roughing it in Australia. He said he would withdraw his opposition if--if--Bob (Bob was his name) came home with a sufficient fortune to keep me in comfort in England.”

”And he never did?”

”He went out to try. I felt sure he would, and he felt sure he would. At twenty-two it seems as if fortunes can be made if it is really necessary. And I promised to wait for him, and he was to work to win me.”

I could not refrain from shedding a tear. It was all so beautiful, so far beyond anything I could have hoped. I pressed Aunt Emmy's hand in silence, and she went on:

”But there were bad seasons, and though he worked and worked, and though he did get on, still, you could not call it a fortune. And after five years had pa.s.sed he wrote to say that he was making a living, and his uncle had taken him into partners.h.i.+p, and could not I come out to him.

He had built an extra room on purpose for me. Your Uncle Thomas was terribly angry when the letter came, because he had always been against my emigrating, and he forbade any further correspondence. Men are very high-handed, my love, when you come to live with them. We were not allowed to write after that. Do you know, my dear, I became so distressed that I had thoughts--I actually contemplated running away to Australia?”

”Oh! why didn't you?” I groaned. That, of course, was the obvious solution of the difficulty.

”Very soon after that your Uncle Thomas had his stroke, and after that of course I could not leave him.”

”Could not we do it still?” I suggested. Of course I took for granted that I should be involved in the elopement, as the confidential friend who carries a little reticule with jewels in it, and sustains throughout the spirits of the princ.i.p.al eloper.

”_Now!_” said Aunt Emmy, and for a moment a violent emotion disfigured her sweet face. ”Now. Oh! my child, all this happened fifteen years ago, when you were a toddling baby.”

”I wish to Heaven I had been as old then as I am now,” I said with clenched hands. I felt that I could have vanquished Uncle Thomas and Uncle Tom, and all this conspiracy against my darling Aunt Emmy's happiness.

”And is he still--still----?” I ventured.

”I don't know whether he is still--free. I have not heard from him for fifteen years. Uncle Thomas was very firm about the correspondence. He is a very decided character, especially since his stroke, and I have ceased to hear anything at all about him since his mother died twelve years ago.”

To me twelve years ago was as in the time of Noah. Yet here was Aunt Emmy, to whom it was all as fresh as yesterday.

”When she died,” said Aunt Emmy, ”she was ill for a long time before, and I used to go and sit with her. She was fond of me, but she never quite did your Uncle Thomas justice. When she died she sent me this ring.” She touched the beautiful emerald ring she always wore. ”She said she had left it to him, and he had asked that she would send it to me.

It had been her own engagement ring.”

”Why don't you wear it on your engaged finger?”

”I did at first. It was a kind of comfort to me. But Uncle Tom was constantly vexed with me about it. He said it might keep things off. He is a very practical person, Uncle Tom, a very shrewd man of business, I'm told. So, to please him, I wear it in the daytime on my right hand.”

By this time I was shedding tears of sheer sensibility.

”I have thought of him day and night; there has not been a night I have not remembered him in my prayers for nearly twenty years. It will be twenty years next April. How could I begin to think of any one else _now_, Colonel Stoddart or any one? Uncle Tom is very clever, and so is your Uncle Thomas, but I don't think they have ever _quite_ understood what I feel about Mr. Kingston.”

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