Part 4 (1/2)
”No, she's busy; run away this moment. Judy, if you question me I shall have to appeal to your father. Now, my loves, go.”
The little girls left the room, Babs complacently enough, Judy unwillingly. Babs was sleepy, and was very glad to lay her little head on her white pillow; but sleep was very far away from Judy's eyes.
The little girls' bedroom was over a portion of the drawing room. They could hear the waves of the music and the light conversation and the gay laughter as they lay in their cots. The sounds soon mingled with Babs'
dreams, but Judy felt more restless and less sleepy each moment.
Miss Mills had entire care of the children. She dressed them and undressed them as well as taught them. She had left them now for the night. Miss Mills at this moment was writing an indignant letter in reply to the one which had so excited her feelings this morning. Her schoolroom was far away. Judy knew that she was safe. If she got out of bed, no one would hear her. In her little white night-dress she stole across the moonlit floor and crept up to the window. She softly unfastened the hasp and flung the window open. She could see down into the garden, and could almost hear the words spoken in the drawing room.
Two figures had stepped out of the conservatory and side by side were walking across the silvered lawn.
Judy's heart beat with great thumps--one of these people was her sister Hilda, the other was Jasper Quentyns. They walked side by side, keeping close to one another. Their movements were very slow, they were talking almost in whispers. Hilda's head only reached to Jasper's shoulder; he was bending down over her. Presently he took her hand. Judy felt as if she should scream.
”He's a horrid, horrid, wicked man,” she said under her breath; ”he's a deceiver. 'Men were deceivers ever.' I know what he is. Oh, what shall I do? what shall I do? Oh, Hilda, oh, Hilda, darling, you shan't go through the misery of being engaged and then being married. Oh, oh, what shall I do to save you, Hilda?”
Quentyns and Hilda were standing still. They had moved out of the line of light which streamed from the drawing room, and were standing under the shadow of a great beech tree. Judy felt that she could almost hear their words. From where she leant out of the window she could certainly see their actions. Quentyns stooped suddenly and kissed Hilda on her forehead; Hilda looked up at him and laid both her hands in his. He folded them in a firm pressure, and again stooping, kissed her twice.
Upstairs in the nursery, misery was filling one little heart to the brim. A sob caught Judy's breath--she felt as if she should choke. She dared not look any more, but drawing down the blind, crept back into bed and covered her head with the bed-clothes.
In the drawing room the guests stopped on, and never missed the two who had stolen away across the moonlit lawn. One girl, it is true, might have been noticed to cast some anxious glances toward the open window, and the companion who talked to her could not help observing that she scarcely replied to his remarks, and was not fully alive to his witticisms; but the rest of the little world jogged on its way merrily enough, unconscious of the Paradise which was so close to them in the Rectory garden, and of the Purgatory which one little soul was enduring upstairs.
”Hilda,” said Quentyns, when they had stood for some time under the beech tree, and had said many things each to the other, and felt a great deal more than could ever be put into words. ”Hilda,” said Quentyns, and all the poetry of the lovely summer evening seemed to have got into his eyes and filled his voice, ”I give you all, remember, all that a man can give. I give you the love of my entire heart. My present is yours, my future is to be yours. I live for you, Hilda--I shall always live for you. Think what that means.”
”I can quite understand it,” replied Hilda, ”for I also live for you. I am yours, Jasper, for now and always.”
”And I am a very jealous man,” said Quentyns. ”When I give all, I like to get all.”
Hilda laughed.
”How solemnly you speak,” she said, stepping back a pace, and an almost imperceptible jar coming into her voice. Then she came close again. ”The fault you will have to find with me is this, Jasper,” she said, looking fully at him with her sweet eyes; ”I shall love you, if anything, too well. No one can ever come between us, unless it is dear little Judy.”
”Judy! Don't you think you make too much fuss about that child? She is such a morbid little piece of humanity.”
”Not a bit of it. You don't quite understand her. She and I are much more than ordinary sisters to each other. I feel as if I were in a certain sense Judy's mother. When mother died she left Judy to me.
Little darling! No one ever had a more faithful or a n.o.bler heart. You must get fond of her too, for my sake; won't you, Jasper?”
”I'll do anything for your sake, you know that, Hilda. But don't let us talk of Judy any more just now--let us----”
”Mr. Quentyns, is that your voice I hear?” called Aunt Marjorie, from the drawing room. ”And, Hilda, ought you to be out with the dew falling so heavily?”
CHAPTER IV.
CHANGES.
Sing on! we sing in the glorious weather Till one steps over the tiny strand, So narrow in sooth, that still together On either brink we go hand in hand.
The beck grows wider, the hands must sever, On either margin our songs all done; We move apart, while she singeth ever, Taking the course of the stooping sun.
--JEAN INGELOW.