Red as a Rose is She: A Novel

by Rhoda Broughton

  CHAPTER VII.

  Five minutes more, and three large brown parasols, a large black pokebonnet and two little dirt-coloured ones, are seen slowly pacingdown the hill to the House of Prayer. The lovers have Plas Berwyn tothemselves. Bob has gained his point, despite a parting fleer fromBessy as to the undesirability of neglecting the Creator for thecreature.

  "Tim Dowler! Tim Dowler! Tim Dowler!" cries Esther, joyously, jumpingabout the room like a child, and mimicking the one church bell whichis heard clearly tinkling through the valley. "Listen, Bob! Does itnot say 'Tim Dowler' just exactly as if it were speaking it? Oh! lookhere: I'll lose all their places for them in their good books, and Ibet anything they'll never find them again." So saying, she proceedsto remove the paper-knife from the "Saturday Night of the World," andcarefully closes "Stop the Leak."

  "What spirits you are in to-day, Essie!" says Bob, balancing himselfon the window-sill, with his long legs dangling lugubriously, andfollowing her about the room with his eyes, as a child does abutterfly. "I believe it is because you are going to be rid of me for afortnight."

  "Partly, I think," replies Esther, nonchalantly. "It seems as if allmy life I had seen and heard of nothing but Glan-yr-Afon and PlasBerwyn, Plas Berwyn and Glan-yr-Afon, and now I'm going to see and hearsomething fresh; it may be better and it may be worse; but, at allevents, it will be something different. Perhaps I shall come back asthe country mouse did, more in love than ever with my own cheeseparingsand tallow-candle ends; perhaps"--swinging her Sunday bonnet by thestrings and looking up maliciously--"perhaps I shall see some one Ilike better than you, and not come back at all."

  "Hush!" he cries, hurriedly, putting up his hand before her mouth."Don't say that; it is bad luck. I should not mind your saying it if itwere not so horribly probable."

  Esther subsides into gravity.

  "I wish to Heaven you were not so fond of me!" she says, hastily;"please do try not to be: it makes me feel as if I were cheating allthe time--having things and not paying for them."

  "I could have given you up _at first_, if you had told me it must beso positively; I'm sure I could have made shift to do without you, as Ihave made shift to do without many a thing that other fellows considernecessaries of life; but now----"

  He has seized her two hands, and now holds her standing there beforehim. To hold her hand is the one familiarity Robert is permitted; notonce in all his life has he kissed his betrothed.

  "It was a foolish, silly custom," she said one day, pettishly--"nosensibler than rubbing noses together, as the Feejee islanders did; forher part, she hated it, &c."

  "But now, what? finish your sentence, please," says the little captive,gaily.

  "Esther, I wish these people had not got a son."

  "What people?"

  "These Gerards."

  "Why so? Do you think that they would have left you their money if theyhad not?"

  "No, not that," smiling against his will. "But, Essie, you'll promiseto write and tell me what he is like?"

  "Yes."

  "What sort of age?"

  "Yes."

  "Whether you see much of him?"

  "Yes."

  "What he says to you?"

  "Come, I cannot promise that," says Esther, bursting out laughing. "Ohyou dear old goose! are you jealous of a name, a shade, an imagination?"

  "I _am_ jealous," he answers, reddening. "I can no more help it thana man in the gout can help having twinges. I shall always be jealousuntil you are really mine past stealing or taking back again: afterthat I never shall."

  "I should hope not," retorts she, with levity: "if you were, I shouldthink it my duty to try and give you some cause."

  The church bell has ceased; there is no sound in the quiet room butthat of one fat-bodied bluebottle, labouring and buzzing up the pane,and then tumbling back again. Robert has abandoned the window-sill,finding it a painful and not luxurious seat: he is walking up and down,up and down; one stride and a half of his long legs taking him from endto end of the little room. Esther has thrown herself into an Americanrocking chair, and is rocking violently backwards and forwards, tryingher best to tip herself over.

  "Promise me, Essie," says the young man, coming to a sudden standstillbeside her--"promise me that you'll talk seriously of--you knowwhat--when you come home; I give you till then? Good heavens! whatsort of stuff could Jacob have been made of to have held out all thosefourteen years!"

  "'The little maid replied, Some say a little sighed, And what shall we have for to eat, eat, eat? Will the love that you're so rich in Make a fire in the kitchen, Or the little god of love turn the spit, spit, spit?'"

  answers Esther, evading her lover's urgency by a quotation.

  "If I could get an Adjutancy of Volunteers," pursues he, resuminghis walk, with his eyes bent on the ground, and frowning away in theintensity of his thinking, "or, better still, a Militia one, or a ChiefConstableship, or the Governorship of a gaol: there are always some ofthose sort of things going about. Why should I not come in for one aswell as another fellow? We want so little----"

  "Want so little?" interrupts Esther, briskly. "Speak for yourself,please: I want a great deal; only, as far as I can see, want is likelyto be my master."

  "You are no fine lady," pursues he, talking more to himself than toher, "that requires to be waited on; you can make your own bonnets andgowns, cannot you? My sisters always do."

  "So I should imagine," says Esther, drily.

  "What do you mean? Are not they all right? is there anything the matterwith them?" inquires he, stopping short and looking surprised, as ifthe idea of there being any deficiency in his sisters' costumes was anentirely new light to him. But Miss Craven purses up her pretty mouthin a silence more damnatory of the Misses Brandon's toilettes than anywords could be.

  "If we had not a large enough income to live by ourselves," says he,beginning again his tramp, tramp, "we might join housekeeping withmother and the girls; they would not object, I'm sure."

  "But I should, _strongly_," cries Esther, springing up, and gettingcrimson with vexation. "Why, we should all be by the ears in a week.Robert, how many times will you make me tell you that I like you wellenough to go sailing along beside you on the sea of life as long as itis nice and smooth, but I really do not love you enough to go bumpingover rocks and into breakers with you? I would do it for Jack, andwelcome, but for no other human being on the face of the earth."

  "Will you never like me as well as you do Jack?" he inquires, sadly,looking at her with eyes so loving, that one would think her own mustcatch the infection. But, no; they remain coldly bright, with the coldbrightness of friendship.

  "Never."

  "Not after ten years?"

  "No."

  "Nor twenty?"

  "No."

  "Nor thirty?"

  "No, nor a thousand. Cannot you see what a different thing it is? Ifone loses a lover one can get a hundred more just as good as, if notbetter than, the one lost; but if I were to lose Jack--oh, God! how canI suggest anything so awful--who could give me another brother?"

  "So be it, then, since it must be that I am to play second fiddle allmy life (sighing); but, Essie, you'll promise to write to me every day,won't you?"

  "Certainly not."

  "Every second day, then?"

  "Certainly not."

  "Twice a week, then?"

  "Per--haps; if I have anything to say."

  "And you'll be sure not to stay beyond the fortnight?"

  "That depends. If they are _fine_, and inclined to 'country cousin' me,I shall probably be back the day after to-morrow: if they make a greatfuss with me, and if Mr. Gerard is young and handsome and civil-spoken,I dare say you will not see me again under two months."

  He looks so sincerely pained that her conscience smites her.

  "There," she says, "I have teased you enough for one day; let us kissand make friends,--that is, figuratively. Come," putting out her handto draw him along with her, "let u
s go to the kitchen garden and see ifthe wasps have left us any apricots. If Bessy were here, she would tellus some pleasing anecdote of how some people went and picked apricotson the Sabbath, and got stung in the throat and swelled, and died ingreat agonies; but I'm willing to run the risk if you are."

  * * * * *

  Nine o'clock! The maid-servants are at evening church, combining thedouble advantage of _making their souls_ and meeting their sweethearts.Esther, happily rid of hers, is sitting on the ground at the Frenchwindow of the study, beside her brother. The rooks that blackened themeadow awhile ago have flapped heavily home to the mile-off rookery. Itis such a great, still world; who would fancy that there were so manynoisy men, barking dogs, snorting steam-engines in it? It seems a worldof stars and flowers, as one would imagine it after reading one of Mrs.Heman's poems.

  Jack is smoking; now and then Esther takes the pipe out of his mouth,gives a little puff, coughs and chokes, and puts it back again. Oh,blessed state of intimacy, when you may sit by a person for hours andnever utter to them! Esther is thinking what a pretty, pleasant Idylliclife hers is; like an Arcadian shepherdess's in this lovely valley,far away from smoky towns and vulgar cares and sordid toils. Young andbeautiful (what pretty woman is mock-modest to her own thoughts?),living with a brother who is to her what father, mother, brothers,sisters, husband, children, are to other women; a brother who is onlythree years older than herself, consequently not likely to die muchbefore her. She is thinking, a little regretfully, that, fair andpoetic as this life is, it is passing, and that as it passes she doesnot feel its beauty as acutely as she ought--does not suck out all itssweetness, as a man swallows a delicious draught hastily, carelessly,without tasting and dwelling upon its rare flavour. It is the same_sort_ of thought (only much weaker) as those that torment us as we sitalone by the hearth mourning our dead, and reproach ourselves, with ayearning pain, that while they were yet with us we did not draw ourchairs half close enough to theirs--did not take hold of their handsand kiss their faces half often enough--did not half often enough tellthem, with eager lips, how preciouser than life they were to us.

  "What will you be doing this time to-morrow, Essie?" asks Jack,breaking in upon her reverie; and has not he a right, for is not heking and hero of it?

  "Wishing myself back again, to a dead certainty," answers Essie,emphatically. "Jack" (rubbing her cheek up and down softly against hisshoulder--Jack is but a young, slight stripling), "I do believe that ifI were in heaven, and saw you sitting all alone here smoking your pipe,I should have to throw away my harp and crown, and come down to keepyou company."

  "If you were in heaven," returns Jack, gravely, "I think you would beso surprised and pleased to find yourself there that you would be in nohurry to come out again for me or anybody else."

  "Perhaps so, but I think not," she answers, sighing, and thrusting herarm gently through his.

  "Have you got any money, Essie?"

  "Plenty."

  "How much?"

  "Plenty."

  "But how much?"

  "Never you mind."

  "But I do mind."

  "Enough to take me there and bring me back again, and I don't supposethey'll charge me for board and lodging."

  "Servants at those sort of swell places expect such a lot of tipping,"says Jack, pensively, knocking the ash out of his pipe.

  "They may expect, then; a little disappointment is very wholesome forus all. They are much better able to tip me than I them."

  "There are sure to be charity sermons, too," continues the boy, with aforethought worthy of riper years. "I don't know how it is, but I neverwent to a strange place in my life without there being a collection forthe Kaffirs or the Jews or the Additional Curates or something the veryfirst Sunday after I got there."

  "I would pretend I had forgotten my purse."

  Jack puts his pipe in his pocket, rises, retires into his sanctum,lights a candle, rummages in a drawer, and presently returns with afive-pound note. Bank notes grew but in scanty crops at Glan-yr-Afon.

  "Here, Essie."

  "No! _no!_ NO!" cries Essie, volubly, jumping up and clasping her handsbehind her back.

  "Yes! _yes!_ YES!"

  "No! no! You won't have enough money to pay the men on Saturday night."

  "Talk about what you understand," says Jack, gruffly. "Do you think I'mgoing to let my sister go about like a beggar and whine for halfpence?"

  "Oh, Jack, Jack!" throwing herself about his neck, and burying her facein his sunburnt throat. "How bitter it is always to take, and never togive! Oh! if I had but something to give you; but you know I have gotnothing in the world."

  "You have got Bob."

  "Ah! so I have" (making a little grimace); "and if he would do you anygood, you might have him, and welcome, to make mincemeat of, if youliked."