Part 49 (1/2)

”I shall easily find an opportunity,” he said, ”of telling St. George what I have done. I went through the dining-room and saw the names on the plates, and I took the liberty to change one or two. You can sit by the curate at any time. In fact, I should think old friends.h.i.+p and a kind heart might make you prefer to sit by me. Say that they do, Mrs.

Walker.”

”They do,” answered Emily. ”But your reason, John?”

”That little creature is a match-maker. Why must she needs give me the golden head?”

”Oh, she did? Perhaps it was because she thought you would expect it.”

”Expect it! _I_ expect it? No; I am in the blessed case of him who expects nothing, and who therefore cannot be disappointed. I always thought you were my friends, all of you.”

”So we are, John; you know we are.”

”Then how can you wish such a thing for me? Emily, you cannot think how utterly tired I am of being teased about that woman--that lady. And now St. George has begun to do it. I declare, if I cannot put a stop to it in any other way, I'll do it by marrying somebody else.”

”That is indeed a fearful threat, John,” said Emily, ”and meant, no doubt, to show that you have reached the last extremity of earnestness.”

”Which is a condition you will never reach,” said John, laughing, and lapsing into the old intimate fas.h.i.+on with her. ”It is always your way to slip into things easily.”

John and Emily had walked on, and believed themselves to be well in front, and out of hearing of the others; but when the right time has come for anything to be found out, what is the use of trying to keep it hidden? Justina, seeing her opportunity, went forward just as Brandon drew the rest of the party aside to look at some rather rare ferns, whose curled-up fronds, like little crosiers, were showing on the sandy bank. She drew on, and one more step would have brought her even with them, when John Mortimer uttered the words--

”If I cannot put a stop to it in any other way, I'll do it by marrying somebody else.”

Justina stopped and stooped instantly, as if to gather some delicate leaves of silver-weed that grew in the sand; and Emily, who had caught her step, turned for one instant, and saw her without being perceived.

Justina knew what these words meant, and stood still arranging her leaves, to let them pa.s.s on and the others come up. Soon after which they all merged into one group. John gave his arm to Mrs. Henfrey, and Emily, falling behind, began to consider how much Justina had heard, and what she would do.

Now Dorothea had said in the easiest way possible to Justina, ”I shall ask our new clergyman to take Emily in to luncheon, and Mr. Mortimer to take you.” Justina knew now that the game was up; she was not quick of perception, but neither was she vacillating. When once she had decided on any course, she never had the discomfort of wis.h.i.+ng afterwards that she had done otherwise. There was undoubtedly a rumour going about to the effect that John Mortimer liked her, and was ”coming forward.” No one knew better than herself and her mother how this rumour had been wafted on, and how little there was in it. ”Yet,” she reflected, ”it was my best chance. It was necessary to put it into his head somehow to think about me in such a light; but that others have thought too much and said too much, it might have succeeded. What I should like best now,” she further considered, pondering slowly over the words in her mind, ”would be to have people say that I have refused him.”

She had reached this point when Emily joined her walking silently beside her, that she might not appear companionless. Emily was full of pity for her, in spite of the lightening of her own heart. People who have nothing to hope best know what a lifting of the cloud it is to have also nothing to fear.

The poetical temperament of Emily's mind made her frequently change places with others, and, indeed, become in thought those others--fears, feelings, and all.

”What are you crying for, Emily?” her mother had once said to her, when she was a little child.

”I'm not Emily now,” she answered; ”I'm the poor little owl, and I can't help crying because that cruel Smokey barked at me and frightened me, and pulled several of my best feathers out.”

And now, just the same, Emily was Justina, and such thoughts as Justina might be supposed to be thinking pa.s.sed through Emily's mind somewhat in this way:--

”No; it is not at all fair! I have been like a ninepin set up in the game of other people's lives, only to be knocked down again; and yet without me the game could not have been played. Yes; I have been made useful, for through me other people have unconsciously set him against matrimony. If they would but have let him alone”--(Oh, Justina! how can you help thinking now?)--”I could have managed it, if I might have had all the game to myself.”

Next to the power of standing outside one's self, and looking at _me_ as other folks see me, the most remarkable is this of (by the insight of genius and imagination) becoming _you_. The first makes one sometimes only too reasonable, too humble; the second warms the heart and enriches the soul, for it gives the charms of selfhood to beings not ourselves.

”Yet it is a happy thing for some of us,” thought Emily, finis.h.i.+ng her cogitations in her own person, ”that the others are not allowed to play all the game themselves.”

When Brandon got home John saw his wife quietly look at him. ”Now what does that mean?” he thought; ”it was something more than mere observance of his entering. Those two have means of transport for their thoughts past the significance of words. Yes, I'm right; she goes into the dining-room, and he will follow her. Have they found it out?”

All the guests were standing in a small morning-room, taking coffee; and Brandon presently walking out of the French window into the garden, came up to the dining-room outside. There was Dorothea.

”Love,” she said, looking out, ”what do you think? Some of these names have been changed.”