Doctor Cupid: A Novel
that though she is nearly twenty-three years old, to her a long lover's
look, a close lover's clasp, are unfamiliar things.
His heart bounds at the thought; but at the same moment is pierced by an
arrow of pain. On what an inequality are they meeting! It is all new to
her; while to him! Oh that he had but God's great gift of erasure! that
he could sponge out from his life those other looks and clasps! that he
could bring to her such eyes, such a heart, such a hand as she is
bringing him!
How, save through his own giving to her, could Lily Harborough have had
the power to poison these, his fairest moments?
'Will they be here all afternoon?' he asks under his breath.
'I think it is more than probable,' she answers in the same key, while
right under his eye, over her cheeks, the lovely carnations and lilies
are chasing and dispossessing each other.
It is part of his punishment, perhaps, that across his mind, as he
looks, there flashes a recollection of Betty's paint; a comparison that
he hates, and that yet he cannot avoid, between that colour and this.
Which is brightest?
'Could not you send them away?'
'Lily would not go,' replies Peggy, with a slight shrug. 'And as for
him, poor little fellow, I cannot bear to be unkind to him, when he is
only just out of the jaws of death. Did you know that he had been at
death's door?'
'Yes, I knew,' he answers briefly.
At this reply there comes, or at least it seems to him that there comes,
a tiny cloud over the clear blue heaven of her eye; and seeing it, he
hastens on:
'Is there no place where we can escape from them--where we can be by
ourselves? Oh, Peggy, Peggy! do you think that I came down from London
to talk to Lily Harborough?'
The cloud stirs a little, but does not altogether remove.
'Did you know that they were here?'
'I! of course not! How should I?'
A passer-by along the road, throwing in a casual glance between the bars
of the gate, gives her a pretext for sliding her hands out of his. It
strikes him that she is over-ready to avail herself of it.
'Do they ever go to church in the afternoon?' he asks, catching at this
last straw.
A faint ripple of amusement steals over her lips.
'Never.'
She lifts the latch of the door as she speaks, and through the aperture
the sun pours in, making a royal road into the cool and shaded interior,
where he can catch a glimpse of the birds setting his own ladder aswing;
of the Kabyle-pots full of country posies; of the familiar worn
furniture he had grown last year to think so beautiful. He follows her
with alacrity. It is morally impossible that the children can be
inside. He is standing once again on the old Turkey carpet. Here is her
sandal-wood workbox, among whose reels he has seen Franky ravaging. Here
is the chair whose leg he had helped to mend. Here is the cottage
eight-day clock, with the good-humoured moon-face, which they had all
agreed to have a look of milady peeping over its dial-plate. Here is
Mink, civil and smirking. Here is--herself!
'It is like coming home,' he says softly.
As he speaks a slight noise behind him makes him turn his head. Can it
be Lily again? Lily, with more dreadful questions, more terrible
invitations to draw out of her armoury of torments? But no! it is not
Lily; it is only Prue. Prue, often a little out of sorts, a little sorry
for herself, rising with the inevitable poetry-book in her hand, and
with a look full of astonishment, from her oak settle by the fireside.
He had forgotten Prue's existence.
'Mr. Talbot!' cries she; 'is it possible? I heard a man's voice; I could
not imagine whose it could be. Are you staying at the Manor? Is milady
back? Is there any one else there? A party?'
He laughs confusedly. 'I have no connection with milady.'
'Are you at the Hartleys' then?' (a greatly increased eagerness); 'do
you know the Hartleys?'
'I have not that honour.'
'At the Evanses'? No! impossible! I cannot imagine any one in their
right mind staying at the Evanses'.'
'I do not know whether I am in my right mind, but I am not at the
Evanses'.'
'Where _can_ you be then?'
'I am at the Roupell Arms.'
'The little inn in the village? Not really?'
He makes an affirmative sign. Surely, if the girl is not a perfect fool,
she will understand, she will efface herself, she will take herself
off, and leave them to themselves, as Peggy has so often left her and
her Freddy to themselves. But to a person whose whole being is
habitually permeated by one idea, other ideas are slow in penetrating.
Prue has not the least intention of effacing herself. Her
curiosity--always, save on one theme, a languid emotion--satisfied, she
prepares to replace herself on her settle.
'The Roupell Arms!' repeats she; 'what a funny idea! I never heard of
any one staying at the Roupell Arms; I am afraid you will be very
uncomfortable. Peggy, would you mind covering me again with this shawl?
I do not know what any one else feels, but I feel chilly.'
It is clear that to no member of her household has it ever occurred to
efface herself for Peggy. Presently the luncheon-bell rings, and the
children come bouncing in, delighted at the prospect of dining without
pinafores, and the consequent opportunity for beslobbering their best
clothes. Talbot's chance of a _tete-a-tete_ seems to be retreating into
a distance to which his eye cannot follow it. But at least his eye can
follow her, as she tries to coax Prue's sickly palate, as she cuts up
Franky's dinner. Into this last occupation Lily manages to introduce a
slight element of awkwardness.
'When I was little John Talbot used to cut up my dinner sometimes,' says
she narratively--'sometimes he cut it up, and sometimes mammy did; but
before I was as old as Franky I could cut it myself.'
'You are a very wonderful little girl,' says Talbot angrily, losing his
temper at the consciousness that he is reddening, 'we all know that; but
suppose that we do not hear any more about you just at present.'
After luncheon they are all dragged out by the children to see the
wonders of the stable-yard. It is true that the hayloft kittens have, to
Franky's surprise, expanded into sad and sober cats; but this not wholly
unexpected metamorphosis has not found Alfred unprepared. He has
brought instead, out of his treasure, ferrets new and old; and to see
these interesting animals lift their pale noses and hands, and their red
topaz eyes out of their box, Talbot has again indefinitely to defer the
possession of his love's sole company. Franky is warmly clasping his
hand, and Lily is hanging heavily on Margaret's arm.
'How red Alfred's ears are!' says she, in a stage aside; 'and how they
stick out!'
Alfred becomes purple.
'Lily,' cries Peggy reprovingly, 'how can you be so rude? You ought
never to make personal remarks.'
Lily tosses her head and giggles, and Franky giggles too, simply because
he has a faint delighted sense that he ought not. There is an atmosphere
of rising naughtiness about them both. Oh that they would but commit
some sin big enough to justify their being sent to bed, or packed off
home in charge of Sarah! But no. They are wily enough to keep on the
hither side of any great iniquity. They are just naughty enough to
prevent attention from being ever for more than a moment withdrawn from
them; but they avoid incurring any guilt so great as to call down
special vengeance on their heads.
Prue has long ago sauntered back to the settle and her rhyme-book. But
for these imps he would have Peggy all to himself. He has several times
begun eager speeches to her, which have met with interruptions such as
these: 'Do you think that they can have fallen into the swill-tub?'
'What _can_ they be doing to the parrot to make him swear so
dreadfully?' 'They will pull out poor Minky's tail!'
By the end of an hour, Talbot, genuine child-lover as he is, is
beginning to feel leniently towards Herod the Great. However, the French
proverb says that everything comes to him who knows how to wait. It may
be true, though some have to carry their waiting into the dark grave
with them. Talbot has not to carry his quite so far. Just in time to
save him from such an outrage to chivalry as would be implied by boxing
Miss Harborough's ears, appear upon the scene, though late, yet better
than never--gods out of the machine--the Harborough nurses. They sweep
off both culprits, despite their earnest and sincerely believed-in
asseverations that Miss Lambton wants them to stay all day. Franky,
indeed, is borne away dissolved in bitter tears at being torn from the
friends who, as he honestly thinks, have been so thoroughly enjoying his
society. Franky's naughtiness is of a wholly imitative character; but
his little warm heart is his own.
Lily, on the other hand, trips away with her head up, having poured one
last stage whisper into Peggy's ear: 'Would it be a personal remark if I
were to tell John Talbot that I think him handsome?'
The object of this flattering inquiry watches the maker of it with a
poignant anxiety, until she, her brother, and her attendants have turned
the corner, and are really and entirely out of sight. Then he heaves a
sigh of profound relief.
'At last!' he says, sweeping a look round the horizon.
It is quite clear. There is not a living soul in sight. Being Sunday,
not even Jacob. Everything comes to him who knows how to wait. He has
known how to wait, and now his moment has come.
'Let us sit under the Judas-tree,' he says, and she acquiescing
passively, they turn their steps thither.
But before they have gone three yards, there is a light foot on the turf
behind them. Prue has fled across the sward from the open window-door,
and is whispering something in Peggy's ear. Almost before he has had
time to feel aghast at this new interruption, she has fled back again.
He looks after her with an irritated inquiry, born of his long
tantalisation.
'Well, what is it now?' he asks angrily; 'anything fresh that you are to
do or leave undone?'
Peggy reddens.
'It was only that she asked us not to sit under the Judas-tree; she
cannot bear any one to sit there--any one else.'
'Any one else!' he repeats, his brief and surface wrath dying away into
a smile of passionate happiness; 'any other lovers, you mean. You may
blink the _word_, Peggy; but you cannot blink the _thing_: we _are_
lovers.'
Peggy does not answer. She has sat down on a seat, above which a great
old thorn is just breaking into a foam of blossom. She has taken up this
position in all unconsciousness of the advantages it presents, but of
which Talbot's eager eye has instant cognisance. The thorn, now thick
with flowers, effectually masks all sitters on that seat from the view
of any eyes darted at them from the house, the only point whence
observation need be dreaded; for what lover minds the robin's round
bright eye, or the chaffinch's surveillance?
'We _are_ lovers!' he repeats, sitting down resolutely beside her.
The thorn, leaning as old trees will, projects so far beyond their heads
as to make a natural arbour for them, and tosses down now and again
whiffs of its pungent perfume, which some strange persons affect to
dislike.
'Are we?' she says, the words travelling softly out on a long sigh. 'You
will think me very stupid'--the red rose of Lancaster for the moment
chasing her pale sister of York out of her face--'but, old as I
am--twenty-three next birthday--I do not know what love--that kind of
love--feels like. I--I--have never had any opportunity of knowing.'
He stares at her in an enraptured astonishment. For such a confession as
this, his apprenticeship to Betty has certainly not prepared him. Can
it be conceivable that he is the first--the very first--to reap the
flowers of this fairest field?