Part 42 (1/2)
Robert Lyon was, as I have said, a good deal changed, outwardly and inwardly. He had mixed much in society, taken an excellent position therein, and this had given him not only a more polished manner, but an air of decision and command, as of one used to be obeyed. There could not be the slightest doubt, as Johanna once laughingly told him, that he would always be ”master in his own house.”
But he was very gentle with his ”little woman” as he called her. He would sit for hours at the ”ingle-neuk”--how he did luxuriate in the English fires!--with Hilary on a footstool beside him, her arm resting on his knee, or her hand fast clasped in his. And sometimes, when Johanna went out of the room, he would stoop and gather her close to his heart. But I shall tell no tales; the world has no business with these sort of things.
Hilary was very shy of parading her happiness; she disliked any demonstrations thereof, even before Johanna. And when Miss Balquidder, who had, of course, been told of the engagement, came down one day expressly to see her ”fortunate fellow countryman,” this Machiavellian little woman actually persuaded her lover to have an important engagement in London! She could not bear him to be ”looked at.”
”Ah, well, you must leave me, and I will miss you terribly, my deal,”
said the old Scotch woman. But it's an ill wind that blows n.o.body good, and I have another young lady quite ready to step into your shoes. When shall you be married?”
”I don't know--hush: we'll talk another time,” said Hilary, glancing at Johanna.
Miss Balquidder took the hint and was silent.
That important question was indeed beginning to weigh heavily on Hilary's mind. She was fully aware of what Mr. Lyon wished, and indeed, expected; that when, the business of the firm being settled, in six months hence he returned to India, he should not return alone.
When he said this, she had never dared to answer, hardly even to think. She let the peaceful present float on, day by day, without recognizing such a thing as the future.
But this could not be always. It came to an end one January afternoon, when he had returned from a second absence in Liverpool.
They were walking up Richmond Hill. The sun had set frostily and red over the silver curve of the Thames, and Venus, large and bright, was s.h.i.+ning like a great eye in the western sky. Hilary long remembered exactly how every thing looked, even to the very tree they stood under, when Robert Lyon asked her to fix definitely the day that she would marry him. Would she consent--there seemed no special reason to the contrary--that it should be immediately? Or would she like to remain with Johanna as she was, till just before they sailed? He wished to be as good as possible to Johanna--still.
And something in his manner impressed Hilary more than ever before with the conviction of all she was to him; likewise, all he was to her. More, much more than even a few short weeks since. Then, intense as it was, the love had a dream like unreality; now it was close, home-like, familiar. Instinctively she clung to his arm; she had become so used to being Robert's darling now. She s.h.i.+vered as she thought of the wide seas rolling between them; of the time when she should look for him at the daily meal and daily fireside, and find him no more.
”Robert, I want to talk to you about Johanna.”
”I guess what it is,” said he, smiling; ”you would like her to go out to India with us. Certainly, if she chooses. I hope you did not suppose I should object.”
”No; but it is not that. She would not live six months in a hot climate; the doctor tells me so.”
”You consulted him?”
”Yes, confidentially, without her knowing it. But I thought it right.
I wanted to make quite sure before--before-- Oh, Robert--.”
The grief of her tone caused him to suspect what was coming, He started.
”You don't mean that? Oh no, you can not! My little woman, my own little woman--she could not be so unkind.”
Hilary turned sick at heart. The dim landscape, the bright sky, seemed to mingle and dance before her, and Venus to stare at her with a piercing, threatening, baleful l.u.s.tre.
”Robert, let me sit down on the bench, and sit you beside me. It is too dark for people to notice us, and we shall not be very cold.”
”No, my darling;” and he slipped his plaid round her shoulders, and his arm with it.
She looked up pitifully. ”Don't be vexed with me, Robert, dear; I have thought it all over; weighed it on every side; nights and nights I have been awake pondering what was right to do. And it always comes to the same thing.”
”What?”
”It's the old story,” she answered with a feeble smile. ”'I canna leave my minnie.' There is n.o.body in the world to take care of Johanna but me, not even Elizabeth, who is engrossed in little Henry.
If I left her, I am sure it would kill her. And she can not come with me. Dear!” (the only fond name she ever called him) ”for these three years--you say it need only be three years--you will have to go back to India alone.”
Robert Lyon was a very good man; but he was only a man, not an angle; and though he made comparatively little show of it, he was a man very deeply in love. With that jealous tenacity over his treasure, hardly blamable, since the love is worth little which does not wish to have its object ”all to itself,” he had, I am afraid, contemplated not without pleasure the carrying off of Hilary to his Indian home; and it had cost him something to propose that Johanna should go too. He was very fond of Johanna; still--