Borrowed feathers
should be invited to the place I longed to visit above every other in
the world. I am ashamed of myself."
"That is right, darling," replied Mrs. Worsley. "Now you are looking
at things in a proper light, and there is nothing to be done but to
continue our preparations."
After this, the hours seemed to fly, so much had to be done, but
further help was obtained to sustain the reed. Williams returned in due
time.
The boys set out for Cumberland in the highest of spirits.
And a couple of hours later, Mrs. Worsley carried off Nettie, and
arrived in the early afternoon at the station nearest to Broadlands.
On the platform were three or four of Mrs. Worsley's nephews and
nieces, wild with delight at seeing her with Nettie in charge. And at
the cry of the first, "Here's Nettie! Hurrah!" the shout was taken
up by the others, who each cheered in a different key, and made the
station resound with their shrill young voices.
There was another person who met the train, and handed the ladies out,
and who, though he did not join in the cheer raised by the juniors,
managed to express his pleasure at sight of the travellers in no less
eloquent language. Truly if ever eyes spoke of gladness, the fine grey
ones of Arthur Boyd told Nettie Clifford that the sight of her bright,
blushing face had vastly increased his present feeling of happiness.
What halcyon days followed! Broadlands itself, with just its regular
inmates, would have been a paradise to Nettie, nestling, as it did,
among glorious woods which sheltered without hiding it, and yet within
walking distance of the sea on one side and a lovely undulating country
on the other three. There were endless drives and plenty of pleasant
neighbours within reach, nearest of all Ferndene, the residence of old
Sir Henry Boyd, Arthur's uncle, with whom Nettie was a prime favourite.
He and his dear old wife were deeply attached to their nephew and heir,
very anxious for him to marry, and yet in great dread lest he should
fall a victim to a mere pretty face.
They had a horror of fastness and flirtation. They believed in one
true, ever-growing holy love which should become stronger and more
self-devoting through each year of wedded life, as theirs had done.
Their nephew would be independent of money considerations; they wanted
him to have a fortune in the wife herself. And so, when twelve months
before, they thought their nephew was learning to care for Nettie
Clifford, they were ready to give their hearty consent if he would only
ask it.
"Just the girl for Arthur," they had said to each other. Well born
and educated, with good health, good looks, a pure mind, and habits
untainted by fashion and folly, yet as bright as a bird; one in whose
society young and old found pleasure. What could they desire better?
Yet the girl's visit had come to an end, and Arthur had not spoken. The
hopes of the old couple had died away, and twelve months had come and
gone in the meanwhile.
Now Nettie was again at Broadlands, and day by day she and Arthur met.
Lookers-on began to whisper, and some that had hoped Sir Henry's heir
would seek a wife in a different direction, lost hope.
At last, a day came when the young man opened his heart to the
relatives who had been as father and mother to him, and asked their
consent and blessing on his union with Nettie Clifford, provided he
could win hers.
They answered him together: "May God bless you as we do, and speed
your wooing! 'A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband.' We could
desire no better fortune for our boy than to win such a wife as Annette
Clifford."
With a light heart, Arthur set out for Broadlands. There was to be a
garden party in the lovely grounds that afternoon, and he had no doubt
that he should find an opportunity of telling Nettie all that was in
his mind. He did not, however, see her immediately on his arrival. The
grounds were extensive, and before Arthur Boyd made one amid the crowd
of guests who kept pouring through the wide gateway, Nettie had been
pounced upon and carried off to take part in a game at tennis.
The decisive set was just at an end when he caught sight of her,
flushed and smiling, after a hard-won victory. But bright as was the
colour on the girl's cheek, it deepened at his approach, and it was
with a look of frank pleasure that she laid her hand in his and bade
him welcome.
But while Nettie's roses deepened, those on Arthur's face died away,
and he became deadly pale as he glanced at the girl's extended hand,
for there, glittering on her "engaged finger," was a superb diamond, a
beautiful single stone of bluish white, a stone of great value, as the
merest ignoramus could tell. Surely the presence of such a jewel in
such a place could have only one meaning.
Arthur hardly knew what he said. He knew that Nettie looked
half-frightened, and asked if he were ill, and that he had answered
in the negative, and got away out of sight. True, she seemed to look
wistfully after him, and her lips moved as if she were begging him to
stay. Probably she was shocked at what she had done, and wished to
deprecate the grief and resentment his face must have expressed.
All their happy hours, all her sweet girlish ways, all the tell-tale
blushes at his coming, all that he had thought he read in the shy eyes
that were wont to droop when he looked too steadily in their direction,
all these things were as nothing to him any more than others.
Someone—Arthur thought he knew who—had offered, and been promptly
accepted by the portionless girl, who was bound to marry well, whether
true love were included in the bargain or not.
Arthur could not leave Broadlands at once, as he longed to do, for his
aunt and uncle, with other friends, were to come later, and he had
promised to wait for and return with them. So he strolled away to a
lonely part of the grounds, and having passed a miserable hour there,
once more bent towards the entrance gates, where he met Nettie.
Surely the girl must have been miserable too, for she looked pale and
troubled, and there were signs about her usually bright eyes that were
suggestive of recent tears. And lo! as he glanced at her hand which
held up a parasol, he saw that it was unadorned. The ring was gone.
"There must have been some stupid mistake," he thought. "I have taken
for granted what had probably no reality. Only Nettie's own lips shall
convince me that she is other than the pure, true-hearted girl I have
ever judged her to be."
To think was to act. There was no one else very near, so Arthur joined
Nettie, and a new light came to her sweet face, and new roses sprang
into being on her cheeks. He began to tell his tale, strolling the
while into a by-path, and had got as far as the ring.
"I came on purpose to speak to you to-day, Nettie, bringing with me
the blessing and approval of my dear aunt and uncle, who would welcome
you with open arms as my wife," he said. "There was only one person
for me amongst all the gay guests, and when I you, darling, sweet, and
fair, and true, I longed to clasp you to my heart and tell you that I
gave you my whole best love a year ago. And then I looked at something
sparkling on your finger, and saw a ring, and feared that someone had
been beforehand with me, so went away miserable, without a word. What
did the ring mean, dear, for you wear it no longer?"
Nettie glanced at her hand as Arthur alluded to the ring, and gave a
cry of horror.
"What shall I do?" she cried. "I did not know it was gone. I would not
lose it for anything. Please do not stop me."
Away fled Nettie towards the house, leaving Arthur with his love story
unfinished, and to put what construction he chose upon her precipitate
retreat. To pursue the girl would have been to cause remark. And Arthur
went more slowly in the direction taken by Nettie, his mind full of
half-formed plans for an immediate voyage to the Antipodes.
Mrs. Worsley was sitting on the terrace, and Annette must have passed
her on her way to the house. Arthur stood by her for a little while,
talking of the party, the lovely weather, and the manifest enjoyment
of the guests, but his manner was constrained, and his answers often
irrelevant. He was on the point of turning away, when Annette once more
appeared, tripping lightly towards them, with a radiant face.
"Aunty, dear aunty, please take this back with my best thanks, and
never, if you love me, ask me to wear borrowed feathers again. I have
been in dreadful trouble. I missed it from my finger, or rather Mr.
Boyd did, and I thought I had lost it in the park. Then I remembered I
had been to my room to wash my hands after preparing some fruit for the
children, and I left Mr. Boyd, very unceremoniously, to see if I had
laid it on the dressing table. It was not there, and I was almost in
despair, when where do you think I found it?
"Exactly fitted into the centre hole of the drainer which covers the
sponge bowl. How glad I was! I am not fit to be trusted with valuables,
you see, for, being unaccustomed to them, I forget that I have them.
Thank you a thousand times for the loan of the ring, aunty, and most of
all for freeing me from the awful responsibility of having valuables,
not my own, to take care of. I will never wear borrowed feathers again
as long as I live."
As Nettie spoke, she placed the ring which had caused Arthur's misery
in Mrs. Worsley's hand, and then gave a sweet, shy, upward glance at
the young man which seemed to say that the story he had begun to tell
would now find an attentive listener.
Mrs. Worsley, with a laughing face, told Arthur how she had insisted on
Nettie's wearing one of her rings, because the girl possessed scarcely
any ornaments of her own.
"It will be hers some day," she added, "but I must take care of it
until she is fit to be trusted with the custody of valuables."
Arthur mentally dissented from Mrs. Worsley's statement that Nettie
possessed few ornaments. He thought that truth, modesty, unselfishness,
a pure, tender nature, and a warm, faithful heart were better
adornments and possessions than all the jewels in the world. But he did
not trouble to tell her so, for some friends were approaching, whom
Mrs. Worsley joined. And Arthur told his thoughts to Nettie instead,
and completed the story begun a little while before.
He must have had faith, too, in Nettie's powers to take care of a
ring, for when the young people met the party from Ferndene, there
glittered on the girl's engaged finger a most beautiful specimen of
the jeweller's art, the diamonds in which were worthy to follow the
borrowed gem.
Thus Arthur Boyd won Nettie for a wife, and the dear old couple at
Ferndene rejoiced that their adopted son would soon give them the
daughter they coveted above all others. And there was rejoicing at
Scarborough, and Mrs. Clifford wrote that her darling Nettie had more
than fulfilled her most cherished hopes by making so wise a choice.
That Mrs. Worsley played the true mother's part to her goddaughter
need hardly be told, or that it was on her breast that the girl shed
the glad tears which came from a heart almost too full of happiness as
she said, "How can I be thankful enough for God's great goodness to
me? How be ashamed enough of my old want of faith, my repinings, and
discontent?"
Mrs. Arthur Boyd has no lack of jewels now, and has long since been
accustomed to the charge of articles of value of her very own. But
if she had never possessed any, her friends think that those better
ornaments which her husband valued most would have been conspicuous in
her life and actions. Also that the one lesson would have sufficed to
prevent her from ever making a second appearance in "borrowed feathers."