Part 65 (1/2)
And to-day, he----” Her heart's throbbing shook her. The Mother said:
”He has told me what has pa.s.sed. He said that he had asked you to marry him, and you had--agreed.” The bitterness of her wounded love was in her tone.
”I--had forgotten,” she panted, ”_that_--until one little careless thing he said brought it all back to me in such a flood. It was like drowning.
Then you came, and--and----” The quavering, pitiful voice rose to a cry: ”Mother, must I tell him everything?” She cowered down in the enfolding arms. ”Mother, Mother, must I tell him?”
A great wave of pity surged out from the deep mother-heart that throbbed against her own. The deep, melodious voice answered with one word:
”No.”
Amazement sat on the uplifted, woebegone face of the girl. The sorrowful eyes questioned the Mother's incredulously.
”You mean that you----”
She folded the slight figure to her. Her sorrowful eyes, under their great jetty arches, looked out like stars through a night of storm. Her greyish pallor seemed a thin veil of ashes covering incandescent furnace-fires.
She rose up, lifting the slender figure. She said, looking calmly in the face:
”I mean that you are not to tell him. Upon your obedience to me I charge you not to tell him. Upon your love for me I command you--never to tell him! Kiss me, and dry these dear eyes. Put up your hair; a coil is loosened. He is waiting for us! Come!”
XLII
The tall, soldierly young figure was standing motionless and stiff, as though on guard, on the river-sh.o.r.e beyond the bend. Whatever apprehensions, whatever regrets, whatever fears may have warred within Beauvayse, whatever consciousness may have been his of having taken an irrevocable step, bound to bring disgrace and reproach, sorrow, and repentance upon the innocent as upon the guilty, he showed no sign as he came to meet them, and lifted the Service felt from his golden head, and held out an eager hand for Lynette's. She gave it shyly, and with the thrill of contact Beauvayse's last scruple fled. He turned his beautiful, flushed face and s.h.i.+ning eyes upon the Mother, and asked with grave simplicity:
”Ma'am, is not this mine?”
”First tell me, do you know that there is nothing in it?”
Her stern eyes searched his. He laughed and said, as he kissed the slender hand:
”It holds everything for me!”
”Another question. Are you aware that my ward is a Catholic?”
”My wife will be of my mother's faith. I would not have her of any other.”
The Mother gave Beauvayse her own hand then, that was marred by many deeds of charity, but still beautiful.
Those two, linked together for a moment in their mutual love of her, made for Lynette a picture never to be forgotten. Then Beauvayse said, in the boyish tone that made the man irresistible:
”You have made me awfully happy!”
”Make her happy,” the Mother answered him, with a tremble in her rich, melancholy tones, ”and I ask no more.”
Her own heart was bleeding, but she drew her black draperies over the wound with a resolute hand. Was not here a Heaven-sent answer to all her prayers for her beloved? she asked herself, as she looked at the girl.
Eyes that beamed so, cheeks that burned with as divine a rose, had looked back at Lady Biddy Bawne out of her toilet-gla.s.s, upon the night of that Ascot Cup-Day, when Richard had asked her to be his wife. But Richard's eyes had never worn the look of Beauvayse's. Richard's hand had never so trembled, Richard's face had never glowed like this. Surely here was Love, she told herself, as they went back to the place of trodden gra.s.s where the tea-making had been.
The Sisters, basket and trestle-laden, were already in the act of departure. The black circle of the dead fire marked where the giant kettle had sung its hospitable song. Little Miss Wiercke and her long-locked organist, the young lady from the Free Library and her mining-engineer, had strolled away townwards, whispering, and arm-in-arm; the Mayor's wife was laying the dust with tears of joy as she trudged back to the Women's Laager beside a husband who pushed a perambulator containing a small boy, who had waked up hungry and wanted supper; the Colonel and Captain Bingo Wrynche had been summoned back to Staff Headquarters, and a pensive little black-eyed lady in tailor-made alpaca and a big grey hat, who was sitting on a tree-stump knocking red ants out of her white umbrella, as those three figures moved out of the shadows of the trees, jumped up and hurried to meet them, prattling: