Addie's Husband; or, Through clouds to sunshine
"Mooning about. Auntie gave orders that no one, on any account, was to
disturb you and Mr. Armstrong in the summer-house. She said I was not
even to peep through the cabbage-plot at the back. I wonder why? Is it
because he may want to kiss you?"
"Go and tell them all, all--to come to the arbor at once, and to stay
with me the whole time that Mr. Armstrong is here; do you hear? Tell
them--tell aunt, too--that, if they don't, I'll send him about his
business as sure as my name's Addie Lefroy! Go quickly, miss; I'm in
earnest. Let them come back before him now, or else--"
Lottie obeys, duly impressed by her sister's determined manner, and,
when the happy suitor returns, laden with footstools and cushions,
prepared for a long morning's _tête-à-tête_ with his love, he finds
the rickety bower in possession of the whole family, who linger by him
all the morning, favoring him with their views, and opinions of things
in general, favoring him also with diffuse reminiscences of personal
biography, and systematically intercepting the faintest exchange of
word, or even look, with his sweet-voiced betrothed.
He bears it with tolerable patience for an hour or so, and then
relapses into moody taciturnity, thus leaving the burden of
entertainment on the able shoulders of "Robert the Magnificent," who
fancies that the brilliancy and aristocratic flavor of his conversation
are creating a most favorable, in fact, overpowering effect on his
plebeian guest, little deeming, honest lad, that the said guest at
the time is inwardly voting his future brother-in-law one of the most
insufferably flippant young prigs and bores it has ever been his
misfortune to meet. At last, unable to stand it any more he takes an
irritated turn round the garden, where he is immediately joined by the
two younger Lefroys.
"Are you fond of gooseberries, Mr. Armstrong?" begins Lottie, whose
voice has not had fair play in the arbor. "Would you like me to pick
you some?--though they are wretched in this garden--little sour hard
balls scarcely worth picking."
"They're splendid up at Nutsgrove," he answers eagerly, struck with a
happy thought--"splendid, large, soft, sweet, and yellow. Suppose you
all trot up there now--Robert, Pauline, Hal, and you, and have a good
morning's feed--eh?"
"Oh, it would be delicious! You'd come with us, too, wouldn't you?"
"Well--ah, no; I would remain with your sister and aunt--keep them
company until you come back."
"Would you? Oh, dear, then we can't go."
"Why not, pray?"
"Because Addie made us all promise faithfully, while you were away with
the peas, that we would remain and help her to entertain you whenever
you came, and never to leave her. She has no conversational powers,
she says; but Rob and Polly have a lot--haven't they? And they have
promised, so have Hal and I too. It's an awful pity, isn't, it? I--I
wish you'd come with us; I know Addie wouldn't mind a bit. She's very
hot-tempered, you know--worse than any of us--but awfully good-natured,
and not a scrap huffy, like Bob and Poll."
Armstrong takes no notice of the suggestion, but walks straight back to
the arbor and bids the attached family farewell.
They stand in a group watching his tall massive figure stalking down
the path.
"How big he looks in this bit of a garden--regularly dwarfs the old
shrubs into plants!"
"Yes, he's what Sally would call a fine figure of a man. Well, Addie,
you'll have quantity, if you don't have qua--"
"I say, Addie," bursts in Bob, excitedly, "did you ask him about my
ship?"
"No, Robert, of course not."
"You didn't? And yet you know I have to sail on Saturday, and leave
here to-morrow afternoon. Quick, quick; run and ask him about it now!"
"What am I to ask him?"
"What? Why, hang it, there's a question! Ask him if I may write and
throw up the whole thing, of course."
"Oh, Bob, Bob," cries the poor little maid, coloring and shrinking.
"I--I couldn't ask him yet; I couldn't begin so soon--the very first
day!"
"What?" cries Bob, with angry bitterness. "Then you'll actually let me
sail in the beastly rotten old tub to-morrow, and live the life of a
water-rat for the next six months--perhaps never see me again--rather
than say one word that would save me? Oh, I never heard of such
confounded selfishness in all my life! I never imagined that any one
calling herself a sister could behave so!"
"Oh, Addie, Addie, don't be so hard, so selfish!"
"Don't send away poor Bob like that. Go after him--go after him, quick!"
"But my foot--my foot--I can scarcely walk! I should never catch him
now," she pleads.
"Yes, you could--here's your stick; he has stopped to light his cigar
at the gate. Go!"
Thus urged, she limps painfully after him, calling his name, but he
does not hear her, and the distance between them increases. She is
about to give up the pursuit in despair, when he stops a second time
to caress a tawny mongrel that has wriggled itself fawningly between
his legs; then her voice is borne to him on the light summer breeze.
He turns and advances quickly to meet her, with a glad smile and
outstretched hands.
"Have you come to say good-by to me, Addie?"
"Yes--no--yes," she answers breathlessly, unconsciously clinging to him
to steady her shaking knees. "It's--it's--about Robert. Need he--must
he join his ship on Saturday?"
He looks thoroughly bewildered.
"Need he join what ship--where? I don't understand."
"Oh, don't you remember? I told you about it yesterday--such a dreadful
service--no salary--articles for three years--cargo of salt to China!"
"Yes, yes, to be sure; I remember. He does not care for his
appointment. Tell him he may write to cancel it at once; I'll make
it right at head-quarters for him; and then we must find him a more
suitable berth on shore."
"Oh, thank you, thank you! How very kind you are!"
She is about to move away; but he lays his hand on her shoulder.
"Wait a moment; you're not half rested. You--you will try to like me a
little, won't you, Addie?"
"Oh, yes!" she answers fervently, her shining eyes looking straight
into his. "I will begin at once, and try as hard as ever I can to like
you, Mr. Armstrong; you are so very kind!"
With a laugh that is half a sigh his hands drop and he turns away.
"I'm a fool, a fool--a blind, besotted fool!" he says to himself
a little later. "I wish I could throw it all up; I wish I had the
strength of mind. It won't do--it won't do! I shall live to reap in
remorse and sorrow what I've sown in doubt and weakness--something
tells me I shall. Well, well, so be it, so be it! I must go through
with it now to the end, come what may."
* * * * *
Addie somewhat sulkily imparts the good news to her family, and then
goes up to her room, locks the door, and lifts from the bottom of
her trunk her cracked old papier-mâché desk, from which she takes
a photograph wrapped in tissue paper, with the remains of a gloire
de Dijon rose that was nipped from the parent-stem one soft June
night three years before and fastened near her throat by warm boyish
fingers--cousinly, not brotherly fingers. She scatters its loose
stained petals out of the window, and then takes a long look at the
picture of her soldier-cousin, Edward Lefroy, who spent a month at
Nutsgrove the last time the colonel visited his home.
It is a bright laughing young face, fair and unbearded, as different in
form, color, and expression from the face of her present lover as it
possibly can be. The difference seems to strike the girl with painful
reality, for tears fall from her downcast eye and drop upon the smiling
features.
"Oh, Ted, Ted, did you mean anything on that day when you were rushing
away? It was all so quick, so hurried, when the order came for you
to rejoin, that I had not time to think, to understand. Did you mean
anything in that hot farewell whisper, 'Good-by, good-by, little woman;
we're as poor as a pair of church-mice now, but, should I come back for
you one day with a lac of rupees, you'll be ready for me, won't you,
Addie darling?' That was three years ago, Ted, three years ago--and
never a word from you since! I'm a goose to think of you now--I know
I am; something tells me you've whispered the same to half a score of
girls since; but, Teddy, if you did mean anything, come back for me
now, before it's too late, before it's too late!"
"Addie, Addie, dinner is up, and there's a batter-pudding! Come down
quick!"
"Coming!" she shouts; and then, carefully wiping the precious
cardboard, she opens the well-thumbed family album. "I needn't destroy
you, poor Ted; but you must leave my old desk now, and spend the rest
of your days with the family"--placing him opposite to a simpering
crinolined relative leaning against a pillar, with a basket of flowers
in her hand. "Good-by, good-by, dear boy; I've watered your grave for
the last time! And now for batter-pudding and a breaking heart!" she
adds, with a light, half-contemptuous, half-wistful laugh, as she runs
down-stairs.
* * * * *
The next morning, when Miss Lefroy appears at breakfast, she finds
the parlor heavy with the breath of roses; eagerly she inhales their
delightful fragrance.
"Aren't they lovely?" cries Lottie. "Did you ever see such a basketful?
They are all for you, Addie, with 'T. A.'s compliments.' And look
at the dishes of cherries and strawberries! Bob has been at them
already--has polished off a couple of pounds. If you don't be quick,
you'll not have any left. Fall to, Addie, fall to!"
But Addie turns away her head, and declares that she does not care for
fruit so early in the day; and presently she even finds fault with the
flowers--they are too much for the small close room--they give her
a headache. She goes forth to the clover field opening out from the
yard, and stretches herself at full length on the fresh sward to while
away the long morning hours, her idle mind no longer troubled by the
irregularities of French grammar, or the habits and manners of ancient
Babylonia.
* * * * *
"Addie, Mr. Armstrong is in the parlor with Aunt Jo. Will you go in to
him, or are we to bring him out here?"
"I'll go in to him; you're all there, aren't you?"
"Oh, yes. Don't you fear; we're all there, and we mean to stop."
"All right then; I'll follow you in presently," says Addie; and then,
after a minute or two, she moves toward the house, muttering to herself
as she does so, "'Soldier, sailor, tinker, tailor, policeman, plowboy,
gentleman--' Oh, you wretches, you mocking little wretches, you
shameful little fibbers, can you not tell me the truth even now? I'm to
marry a gentleman still, am I? Oh, Ted, Ted, does it mean that you are
coming across the sea to me--now--now, at the eleventh hour? I wish I
knew!"
* * * * *
Mr. Armstrong does not stay long this afternoon, having business of
importance at Kelvick. He waits to drink a cup of tea poured out by his
love's nimble hands; and so, during a lucky moment, while the family
are engaged in a light skirmish, he manages to slip unperceived a hoop
of diamonds on her unwilling finger, and then he takes his leave.
After this they are not troubled very much with his society. About two
or three times a week he looks in for half an hour to enjoy a peep at
his future wife, whom he always finds enshrined in a circle of her
devoted family, a circle which, after the first unsuccessful attempt,
he does not try to rout. Miss Darcy is the only member with whom he
is able to enjoy the favor of an uninterrupted _tête-à-tête_; and one
morning toward the end of June, after being closeted with her for a
couple of hours, it is decided to their mutual satisfaction that the