Part 40 (1/2)

The south wind brings a jangle of far church bells to their ears; outside their arbour a starling sits on a tree with its nose in the air, saying odd, short, harsh things; and upon this homely music the souls of Talbot and Peggy on Whit-Sunday float together into love's heaven.

CHAPTER XXVII

'We'll lose ourselves in Venus' Groves of Mirtle, When every little bird shall be a Cupid, And sing of Love and Youth; each wind that blows And curls the velvet leaves shall breathe Delights, The wanton springs shall call us to their Banks, And on the perfum'd Flowers we'll feast our Senses; Yet we'll walk by, untainted of their Pleasures, And, as they were pure Temples, we'll talk in them.'

The shadows have put on their evening length. Even Minky, as he stands with his little face pushed through the bars of his gate, barking at the servants as they return from church--a mere civility on his part, an asking them, as it were, how they enjoyed the sermon--boasts one that would not disgrace a greyhound or a giraffe.

'Are you there, Prue?' softly asks a voice, coming out of the darkening green world outside; coming with an atmosphere of freshness, of dew, of hawthorn, into the little hall, and peering toward the fireside-settle, which, both from the waning light and its own position, hints but dimly that it has an occupant. 'Are you asleep?'

'I do not know,' replies a disconsolate small treble. 'I tried to go to sleep, to get over some of the time. Oh dear, what a long Sunday it has been! Is he gone?' struggling up into a sitting posture out of her enveloping shawls.

'Yes.'

'And you did not sit under our tree?'

'No.'

'How laconic you are!' cries Prue fretfully; 'and I have not exchanged words with a creature since luncheon. Do come here; turn your face to the light. What have you and Mr. Talbot been talking of for the last four hours? John Talbot, as those horrid children call him. I think it is so impertinent of them; but I suppose their mother taught them.'

A slight contraction pa.s.ses over the radiant, dewy face, so docilely turned towards the western s.h.i.+ning.

'Peggy!' cries the younger girl in an altered tone, forgetting her invalidhood, and springing off the settle; 'how odd you look! You do not mean to say--is it possible? You do not suppose that I do not see--that you can hide anything from me!'

'There is nothing that I want to hide,' replies Peggy with dignity, though the blood careers under the pure skin to cheek, and brow, and lily throat; then, with a sudden change of tone to utmost tender deprecation, 'Oh, Prue, you do not mind? You are not vexed? It will not make any difference to you!'

Prue is silent.

'It will make no difference to you,' repeats Peggy, rather faltering at the total dumbness in which her tidings are received. 'Of course you will go on living with me just as you have always done.'

For all answer, Prue bursts into a pa.s.sion of tears.

'Oh, do not say so!' she cries vehemently. 'You talk as if I never were going to have a home of my own! Oh, it would be too cruel, too cruel!'

Her sobs arrest her utterance. She has collapsed upon the settle, and sits there a disconsolate heap, with its hands over its face. Peggy stands beside her; a sudden coldness slackening the pulsations of her leaping heart.

'You will not care any longer about him and me,' pursues Prue weepingly. 'You will have your own affairs to think of. Oh, I never thought that I should have to give up _you_. It was the last thing that ever would have entered my head. Whatever happened, I always counted upon having _you_ to fall back upon!'

The dusk is deepening. Peggy still stands motionless and rigid.

'I know that I am not taking it well,' pursues Prue a minute later, dropping the fingers wetted with her trickling tears, and wiping her eyes; while her breath still comes unevenly, interrupted by sobs. 'I know that I ought to pretend to be glad; but it is so sudden, such a surprise--he is such a stranger!'

The cold hand at Peggy's heart seems to intensify its chill. Is there not some truth in her sister's words? Is not he indeed a stranger? Has not she been too hasty in s.n.a.t.c.hing at the great boon of love that has been suddenly held out to her--she, whose life has not hitherto been furnished with over-much of love's sweetness?

'I know that you must think me very selfish,' continues the younger girl, still with that running commentary of sobs. 'I _am_ selfish, though he says that I am not--that he never knew any one who had such an instinct of self-abnegation; but then he always sees the best side of people. Yes, I _am_ selfish; but I will try to be glad by and by--only,'

with a redoublement of weeping, 'do not expect it of me to-night.'

And, with this not excessive measure of congratulation, poor Peggy has to be content, on the night of her betrothal. She goes to bed with the cold hand still at her heart; but in the morning it has gone. Who can have a cold hand still at her heart when she wakes at early morning at lilac-tide, to find a little round wren, with tiny tail set on perfectly upright, singing to her from a swaying bough outside her cas.e.m.e.nt, with a voice big enough for an ostrich, and to know that a lover is only waiting for the sun to be well above the meadows to lift the latch of her garden-gate.

Before the dew is off the gra.s.s they have met. It is presumable that familiarity with her new position will come in time to Peggy; but for the present she cannot get over the extraordinariness of being--instead of anxiously watching for some one else's tardy lover--going to meet her own. And when they have met and greeted, the incredulity, instead of lessening, deepens. Is it conceivable that it can be _her_ whom any one is so extravagantly glad to see? All through the day--all through several after-days--the misty feeling lingers that there must be some mistake; that it must be some one else; that it cannot be the workaday Peggy, whom she has always known, who is being thus unbelievably set on high and done obeisance to.