Volume I Part 30 (2/2)
So little interest did Mrs. Dill take in the stir and movement around her that the Major utterly failed in his endeavors to torture her by all his covert allusions and ingeniously drawn inferences. No matter what hints he dropped or doubts he suggested, _she_ knew ”Clarissa” would come well out of her trials; and beyond a little unmeaning simper, and a muttered ”To be sure,” ”No doubt of it,” and, ”Why not?” M'Cormick could obtain nothing from her.
Meanwhile, in the outer room the doctor continued to stride up and down with impatience, while Polly sat quietly working on, not the less anxious, perhaps, though her peaceful air betokened a mind at rest.
”That must be a boat, papa,” said she, without lifting her head, ”that has just come up to the landing-place. I heard the plash of the oars, and now all is still again.”
”You 're right; so it is!” cried he, as he stopped before the window.
”But how is this! That 's a lady I see yonder, and a gentleman along with her. That's not Stapylton, surely!”
”He is scarcely so tall,” said she, rising to look out, ”but not very unlike him. But the lady, papa,--the lady is Miss Barrington.”
Bad as M'Cormick's visit was, it was nothing to the possibility of such an advent as this, and Dill's expressions of anger were now neither measured nor muttered.
”This is to be a day of disasters. I see it well, and no help for it,”
exclaimed he, pa.s.sionately. ”If there was one human being I 'd hate to come here this morning, it's that old woman! She's never civil. She's not commonly decent in her manner towards me in her own house, and what she 'll be in mine, is clean beyond me to guess. That's herself! There she goes! Look at her remarking,--I see, she's remarking on the weeds over the beds, and the smashed paling. She's laughing too! Oh, to be sure, it's fine laughing at people that's poor; and she might know something of that same herself. I know who the man is now. That 's the Colonel, who came to the 'Fisherman's Home' on the night of the accident.”
”It would seem we are to hold a levee to-day,” said Polly, giving a very fleeting glance at herself in the gla.s.s. And now a knock came to the door, and the man who acted gardener and car-driver and valet to the doctor announced that Miss Barrington and Colonel Hunter were below.
”Show them up,” said Dill, with the peremptory voice of one ordering a very usual event, and intentionally loud enough to be heard below stairs.
If Polly's last parting with Miss Barrington gave little promise of pleasure to their next meeting, the first look she caught of the old lady on entering the room dispelled all uneasiness on that score. Miss Dinah entered with a pleasing smile, and presented her friend, Colonel Hunter, as one come to thank the doctor for much kindness to his young subaltern. ”Whom, by the way,” added he, ”we thought to find here. It is only since we landed that we learned he had left the inn for Kilkenny.”
While the Colonel continued to talk to the doctor, Miss Dinah had seated herself On the sofa, with Polly at her side.
”My visit this morning is to you,” said she. ”I have come to ask your forgiveness. Don't interrupt me, child; your forgiveness was the very word I used. I was very rude to you t' other morning, and being all in the wrong,--like most people in such circ.u.mstances,--I was very angry with the person who placed me so.”
”But, my dear madam,” said Polly, ”you had such good reason to suppose you were in the right that this _amende_ on your part is far too generous.”
”It is not at all generous,--it is simply just. I was sorely vexed with you about that stupid wager, which you were very wrong to have had any share in; vexed with your father, vexed with your brother,--not that I believed his counsel would have been absolute wisdom,--and I was even vexed with my young friend Conyers, because he had not the bad taste to be as angry with you as I was. When I was a young lady,” said she, bridling up, and looking at once haughty and defiant, ”no man would have dared to approach me with such a proposal as complicity in a wager. But I am told that my ideas are antiquated, and the world has grown much wiser since that day.”
”Nay, madam,” said Polly, ”but there is another difference that your politeness has prevented you from appreciating. I mean the difference in station between Miss Barrington and Polly Dill.”
It was a well-directed shot, and told powerfully, for Miss Barrington's eyes became clouded, and she turned her head away, while she pressed Polly's hand within her own with a cordial warmth. ”Ah!” said she, feelingly, ”I hope there are many points of resemblance between us. I have always tried to be a good sister. I know well what you have been to your brother.”
A very jolly burst of laughter from the inner room, where Hunter had already penetrated, broke in upon them, and the merry tones of his voice were heard saying, ”Take my word for it, madam, n.o.body could spare time nowadays to make love in nine volumes. Life 's too short for it. Ask my old brother-officer here if he could endure such a thirty years' war; or rather let me turn here for an opinion. What does your daughter say on the subject?”
”Ay, ay,” croaked out M'Cormick. ”Marry in haste--”
”Or repent that you did n't. That 's the true reading of the adage.”
”The Major would rather apply leisure to the marriage, and make the repentance come--”
”As soon as possible afterwards,” said Miss Dinah, tartly.
”Faix, I 'll do better still; I won't provoke the repentance at all.”
”Oh, Major, is it thus you treat me?” said Polly, affecting to wipe her eyes. ”Are my hopes to be dashed thus cruelly?”
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