Part 23 (1/2)
”What an impatient fellow you are, Jack!” Harry said smiling. ”Nelly has no more idea that I care for her than you had, and I am not going to tell her so all at once. I don't think,” he said gravely, ”mark me, Jack, I don't think Nelly will ever have me, but if patience and love can win her I shall succeed in the end.”
Jack looked greatly surprised again.
”Don't say any more about it, Jack,” Harry went on. ”It 'ull be a long job o' work, but I can bide my time; but above all, if you wish me well, do not even breathe a word to Nelly of what I have said.”
From this interview Jack departed much mystified.
”It seems to me,” he muttered to himself, ”lads when they're in love get to be like la.s.ses, there's no understanding them. I know nowt of love myself, and what I've read in books didn't seem natural, but I suppose it must be true, for even Harry, who I thought I knew as well as myself, turned as mysterious as--well as a ghost. What does he mean by he's got to be patient, and to wait, and it will be a long job. If he likes Nelly and Nelly likes him--and why shouldn't she?--I don't know why they shouldn't marry in a year or two, though I do hate young marriages. Anyhow I'll talk to her about the dressmaking idea. If Harry's got to make love to her, it will be far better for him to do it here than to have to go walking her out o' Sundays at Birmingham. If she would but let me help her a bit till she's got into business it would be as easy as possible.”
Jack, however, soon had the opportunity of laying his scheme fully before Nelly Hardy, and when she had turned off from the road with him she broke out:
”Oh, Jack, I have such a piece of news; but perhaps you know it, do you?” she asked jealously.
”No, I don't know any particular piece of news.”
”Not anything likely to interest me, Jack?”
”No,” Jack said puzzled.
”Honour, you haven't the least idea what it is?”
”Honour, I haven't,” Jack said.
”I'm going to be a schoolmistress in place of Miss Bolton.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NEW SCHOOLMISTRESS.]
”No!” Jack shouted delightedly; ”I am glad, Nelly, I am glad. Why, it is just the thing for you; Harry and I have been puzzling our heads all the week as to what you should do!”
”And what did your united wisdom arrive at?” Nelly laughed.
”We thought you might do here at dressmaking,” Jack said, ”after a bit, you know.”
”The thought was not a bad one,” she said; ”it never occurred to me, and had this great good fortune not have come to me I might perhaps have tried. It was good of you to think of it. And so you never heard a whisper about the schoolmistress? I thought you might perhaps have suggested it somehow, you know you always do suggest things here.”
”No, indeed, Nelly, I did not hear Miss Bolton was going.”
”I am glad,” the girl said.
”Are you?” Jack replied in surprise. ”Why, Nelly, wouldn't you have liked me to have helped you?”
”Yes and no, Jack; but no more than yes. I do owe everything to you. It was you who made me your friend, you who taught me, you who urged me on, you who have made me what I am. No, Jack, dear,” she said, seeing that Jack looked pained at her thanks; ”I have never thanked you before, and I must do it now. I owe everything to you, and in one way I should have been pleased to owe this to you also, but in another way I am pleased not to do so because my gaining it by, if I may say so, my own merits, show that I have done my best to prove worthy of your kindness and friends.h.i.+p.”
Tears of earnestness stood in her eyes, and Jack felt that disclaimer would be ungracious.
”I am glad,” he said again after a pause. ”And now, Miss Hardy,” and he touched his hat laughing, ”that you have risen in the world, I hope you are not going to take airs upon yourself.”
Nelly laughed. ”It is strange,” she said, ”that I should be the first to take a step upwards, for Mrs. Dodgson is going to help me to go in and qualify for a head-schoolmistress-s.h.i.+p some day; but, Jack, it is only for a little time. You laugh and call me Miss Hardy to-day, but the time will come when I shall say 'sir' to you; you are longer beginning, but you will rise far higher; but we shall always be friends; shall we not, Jack?”