Addie's Husband; or, Through clouds to sunshine

could scarcely recall the poor man's existence when he first appeared; but it seems he has been living on that promise for the last six years in one of the most unhealthy holes in India, starving and screwing to make up that wretched sum; and--now--now--if you please, he wants me to marry him and share it with him. He fell in love with me when I was a great fat-faced tomboy in the school-room, and has never thought of any one since--ridiculous man!" "And you think of rewarding his fidelity? Do you like him, Flo?" "Yes," she answers, with a faint blush, "I--I think I rather like him. He--he is nothing much to look at, of no particular position, not well off, and--and I suppose--in fact, I know--I could do better; but--" "Yes?" "Six years! A long time, wasn't it, Jack?" she says a little wistfully. "Six years--and--and I scarcely thought of him once after he left--poor Claud! All the others whom I jilted, or who jilted me, were on their legs a month or two afterward. I don't think, Jack, I have a very bounteous store of affection to bestow on any man, I don't think I have it in me to care for any one as I care for myself; still six years, you know--" "Is a good spell. I would marry him if I were you. You have knocked about long enough now, Flo. I shouldn't be surprised if you found matrimony a pleasant change. Anyhow, you'll have my best wishes," says Everard heartily. "Don't congratulate me yet," she answers flurriedly. "I--I haven't made up my mind in the least. After all, matrimony is a desperate plunge; once you're in, you can never get out again; and--and I could do so much better--so much better. There's Pelham Windsor. I had a great case with him at Brighton before Christmas, and he has asked mother and me down to his place in Hampshire next month--the Towers--a regular show-place--stabling for forty horses--" "Pelham Windsor! He's a most insufferable little snob, Flo--scarcely up to your shoulder--and was divorced from his first wife." "I know, I know," she answers petulantly. "But it was all her fault; she--" "Of course, of course--it always is!" "Flor--Miss Wynyard, I have been looking for you everywhere. This is our dance, I believe." Major Newton stands before them, a man of about thirty-six, with a lean yellow face, sad brown eyes, and a long gaunt body emaciated by fever--a most incongruous cavalier for the lively florid Miss Wynyard, who however rises at once and lays her hand a little nervously on his arm, whispering to her cousin before she goes-- "Remember, Jack, I have your promise; not a word, a look, a sign to betray--" "Oh, stuff, Florrie!" he answers impatiently. "Do you fancy I gave your nonsense a second thought? Absurd!" Nevertheless, absurd as it seems, the nonsense does occupy his thoughts a good deal during the remainder of the evening, and, instead of following Lady Saunderson's conquering movements with stealthy feverish glance, as he has been doing hitherto, he finds himself watching little Cicely taking her pleasure, with an interest and a curiosity she has never roused in him before. But, watch as closely as he may, he can detect no confirmatory sign, not even when he is bending over her, whispering pretty compliments in her ear. When his arm encircles her waist, her face within a few inches of his own, whirling round the room, her breath comes none the faster, her color does not change, her eye does not sink under his puzzled animated scrutiny. "Flo," he whispers to his cousin, when he is cloaking her on her departure about two hours later, "you were out, my dear--quite out. You are either grossly mistaken, or were willfully misleading me. I've watched her, and there's not a sign of truth in your revelation--not a sign. I've watched her." "Oh, if you have, Jack, of course that settles the question! I was grossly mistaken. Who could deceive your gimlet-eyes?" "Not you, _ma belle_, not you, at any rate!" he retorts quickly, smiling into the girl's handsome sparkling face. "You've taken the plunge, Florrie! I thought you would. Come behind the curtain until I congratulate you on the spot." Just as their lips are meeting in frank cousinly good-will, the drapery parts, and Major Newton, with no very pleasant expression, glares in on them. Miss Wynyard, with the experience of many past misconceptions, hastens to explain the position of affairs, which her _fiancé_ accepts amicably; and for the first time in the annals of her checkered career the course of Miss Wynyard's love runs smooth into the sea of matrimony about two months later. She makes the major an excellent wife; and, though, as the years roll on, their means do not increase in proportion to their family, Mrs. Newton is never heard to complain or taunt her sober husband with the fact that she might have done better--not even when Madame Armine loses her custom altogether, and necessity has trained her hitherto idle fingers to turn her dresses and darn her children's stockings. The friendship between her and Lady Saunderson does not prosper, for their paths naturally diverge somewhat widely, and, when they meet again, after the lapse of some years, those erst kindred spirits find they have scarce a thought, a wish, a pleasure in common. Pauline looks upon Florrie with contempt, as having degenerated into a dowdy, baby-ridden drudge, and Florrie pities Lady Saunderson's unloved and childless lot, chained to a man whom she despises and dislikes, with no light ahead to relieve the gray dreariness of coming age, when her beauty and her social triumphs will be things of the past. CHAPTER XXVIII. For three months Mr. Everard puzzles over the flattering yet almost incredible revelation of Miss Cicely's attachment to him, during which time he leaves no stone unturned, no device unburied to lure the wily damsel into some sign of self-betrayal. He haunts the Rectory night and day, dropping in at most inopportune moments, until Lady Emily Deane, a most energetic and methodical housewife, declares him a worse infliction than half a dozen school-boys home for the holidays, and sighs for the racing season that will take him away from Nutshire for a time. But all Jack's watchings, spyings, ruses, and maiden traps are of no avail. Cicely shows him neither more nor less favor than she has done all her life, treats him with the same careless sisterly regard, smiles when she welcomes him, but does not sigh when she bids him good-by, and betrays no annoyance, pain, or pettishness when he flirts in her presence, any more than when his love for Pauline was at its fever height. So at the end of the three months he has to acknowledge himself just as puzzled and as excited as he was the first evening. In the meantime, rather to his dismay, he begins to find many charms and attractions in the demure brown-eyed little lady which were hidden to him before. He finds a strange soothing pleasure in watching her, as he lies stretched on the old fashioned school-room sofa, busy over her endless household work, stitching, painting, making up accounts, cutting out clothes for the poor, overlooking her young sister's school-tasks, _et cætera_, as seemingly undisturbed, callously unconscious of his presence, as if he had been a stone effigy of idleness. Her voice "grows" on him likewise; its music, which he has listened to carelessly, mechanically for so many years, stirs his heart at last, as it has stirred many men before him, who have been chilled by the cold graciousness of the girl's face and manner--for, when Cicely sings, she pours forth her whole soul, and speaks of love human and divine with an unrestrained, an _entraînant_ passion which no art could have taught her. Many a time during the sweet chill nights of early spring, when Everard hangs over her as she sits at the piano, her voice quivering through the still room with harmonious pain, her eyes glowing, her whole sober being startled into spiritual life, the young man thinks that the supreme moment has come, that his presence has helped to awake the sentimental tumult, only to be cruelly undeceived, when the last note has vibrated, by some commonplace disenchanting remark that makes him long to shake her. "A pretty song, is it not, Jack?" she asks one night, while his every nerve is thrilling with responsive fervor. "Do you like it in the higher or lower key best? May Bennet sings it in sharps; but I like flats best--don't you?" "You sing of love almost as if you felt it, Cicely," he whispers tentatively. "Sappho could not have put more expression into her dying lay than you did just now into that 'Adieu.'" "I like mournful music," she says, her fingers wandering silently over the keys. "Yes; your songs always tell of death and parting and broken faith--blighted blossoms." "'Our sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest thought.' So says the poet, Jack; and, you see, my life is so full of bright and pleasant things, so happy and commonplace, that, when I sing, I like to wander in soul among the royally afflicted." "You are happy, Cicely?" he asks wistfully, laying his hot hand with a timid appealing touch on her straying fingers. "You want nothing in your life?" "Nothing, Jack--nothing. What could I want more than I have?" she answers, in a mild Sunday-school tone of reproof. "Heaven has laden me with benefits; I have had few crosses." "Well, I have not the same complaint, goodness knows!" he says, moving away sullenly. Occasionally he meets Lady Saunderson in society, where she is now beginning to take a prominent lead, the term of her sojourn in Coventry having been summarily curtailed by the rumor that she is going to give a big ball, which brings young ladies to their senses and fills the dowagers' bosoms with Christian feelings toward the beautiful culprit; but Jack and she do not speak to each other again until one evening, riding home, his horse dead-beat after two hard runs, he hears a gay clear voice address him in the gloom--a voice that brings the blood to his face and sets his pulses throbbing. "Is the road wide enough for you and me to walk abreast, Jack Everard?" He looks up and sees that she has reined in at a cross-road, and is waiting to join him. "May I ride by your side as far as the Park gates? I am quite alone--my husband is dining with the Hussars at Kelvick." "I shall be happy to escort you, Lady Saunderson," he answers stiffly. "Dear, dear!" cries Pauline, with a free careless laugh. "So we are riding the high horse still! Get down, Jack, get down; the animal does not suit you in the least. Get down, and let us be friends again. I always liked you, Jack--always." "We need not try to analyze the nature of your attachment, Lady Saunderson. I think I ought to understand it perfectly now." "I doubt if you do," she says, with a slight break in her voice, her small gloved hand caressing his horse's steaming shoulder. "You never judged me fairly, Everard. With you I was always either an angel or an offspring of Jezebel, whereas I am but just something of an ambitious, selfish, yet not wholly heartless woman. It--it cost me a pang, I can tell you, to treat you as I did. But something told me I should not make you happy, or you me; and I am more sure of it even now than I was then. And you, dear boy, is it not so with you?" she asks, leaning forward until her breath fans his face, her great dark eyes, half wistful, half contemptuous, lifted to his averted ones. "Have you not learned to thank Providence for your escape?" "Yes, Pauline," he answers gravely, "I have indeed--and from my heart." "Good boy, good boy. So we can cry quits. Give me your hand. What? Are you afraid to touch me? What harm can I do you, Jack? You have sowed