CHAPTER XVII
Theywere left alone on the empty stage—Verity and her champion at need, shut in by the thick curtain from the ebbing crowd beyond. She had closed the piano, but she still sat beside it, looking at the polished lid, while he stared tensely at the heavy drapery, afraid to stay and yet unable to leave her. When she began to speak, he turned quickly and took a step towards her. She was still looking at the lid, running a finger along the bevelled edge.
“Will you tell me why you did it?” she asked in a low and unemotional tone; but he did not answer—only stood in the middle of the stage, looking at her very intently and very tenderly. If she had raised her eyes at that moment, she would not have needed to repeat her question.
“You won,” she went on, in the same curiously flat voice. “You were right and I was wrong. I should have thought you would be glad to see my concert spoilt—to hear me blamed on Billy’s account. You need not have saved me. Why did you do it?”
“You can’treallythink that I should have been glad to hear you blamed,” he answered gently. “You don’t know much about me but you know a little. You can’t think that!”
“It would have been natural. It is true that I have set myself against you ever since you came to Cantacute. I was afraid of your influence. I was afraid that the people would learn to think more of you than they did of me. I meant to keep them at all costs; and the cost was——”
“Billy-boy Blackburn’s soul!” he finished for her, and there was silence. Then—“You didn’t understand,” he added presently, searching pityingly for excuse.
“Oh, yes, I did!” Verity answered proudly, raising her head at last, quickly. “I knew that you were doing Billy good—that you were keeping him straight in a way absolutely beyond my power. I knew that he hadn’t been drinking for months, and I couldn’t bear that he should owe it to you. I never meant to lead him back into temptation, but Ididmean to show you that he would follow me if I chose to call. I thought I could hold him—I felt certain of it. In my vanity I believed that he might fail anybody else, but never Verity Cantacute. I was wrong and you were right. You’ve won!”
“Ah, don’t speak of it like that!” he remonstrated in a pained voice. “We might be enemies, you and I—and surely—surelythat isn’t the case! It’s all been a wretched misunderstanding, and now we must make it our business to put Billy back on the right road between us. I don’t want you to feel that I owe you a grudge, or that you are under an obligation to me. Either would be intolerable! Just befriends with me, won’t you, and let us forget the sadness of to-night?”
She did not answer, and he went on earnestly, leaning a hand on the piano.
“I should just like to tell you, Miss Cantacute, what was the ‘job’ I was so loth for Billy to shirk. I had got him to sing to the old folk at the Workhouse, two or three times a week, and you should have seen how they loved it, and how he enjoyed doing it! He went regularly, and he was always sober. Generally he sang hymns, but not invariably, and the old people used to join in with their shaky old voices. It’s difficult to think of Billy as an angel, isn’t it, Miss Verity, but I can assure you he looked like one, then! He was so happy in his ‘job,’ and because he was happy he took peace and happiness with him, and left them behind him. And thenyoucalled him, and the ‘job’ went to the wall. The old folk sit and wait for him, night after night, and he does not come. There is one old woman he used to call his mother, who puts up her wrinkled hands and cries as the hours go by——” He took a quick step to her side, his voice breaking into passionate contrition. “Oh, forgive me, forgive me! I never meant to hurt you like that!”—for Verity had given way at last, and was weeping her heart out on the piano lid.
Tentatively he put out a reverent hand, and laid it gently on the bright hair peeping from under the foolish little cap, his voice shaking with love and tenderness and pity.
“I didn’t tell you to hurt you! I only wanted to show you a little how things looked on the other side. You mustn’t be unhappy. I can’t bear to see you fret. We’ll have Billy back at the Workhouse to-morrow, and between us we’ll put things right again, God willing! Don’t cry. It’s dreadful to see you cry.Oh, Honey, lift your pretty head!”
He had never meant to say it, but it had been cradled in his mind so long, it came to his lips before he knew, and with it all the incense of his love. It brought her to her feet instantly, and as she stood staring at him with wet, startled eyes, the man behind the parson drove him forward and caught her hands. So Larrupper found them, dashing into the wings after seeing the Savaurys to their carriage—the pale Pierrot and the painted Pierrette, standing together on the darkened stage.
“Parson or Pierrot, I love you, Verity!” Grant was pleading, but Verity stopped him with a quick movement.
“Don’t say any more, Mr. Grant!” she said clearly, looking straight at him with the courage born of her pity and shame. “I am engaged to Lionel Lyndesay.”