XIX
ABOUT GETTING ENGAGED
I felt when I got up this morning that I was in a dreadfully embarrassing and uncomfortable position about Patty and my promise to Mr. Walker. If I kept it, and tried to use my influence with her, it might be that I would be working against Mr. Brett. It would be hateful to do that, as we are such friends; but I was afraid there must be something rather catty in my nature, (though I never thought so before) because I could not approve of a marriage between him and Patty. My private opinion was that Patty wasn't at all the sort of girl to make him happy; but I didn't dare to depend too much on the wisdom of my opinion, lest it should be biassed by prejudice. It is so hard when you have a friend who has been all yours, to see that some other girl may be more congenial to him than you are, and that the best thing for him would be to fall in love with her.
Mr. Brett has known Patty for a long time, and though he hasn't been here often, he has made flying visits sometimes, I know; and even Patty and Ide both call him "Jim"; never Mr. Brett. I reminded myself as I thought it all over, that probably one reason why he wanted to stay with his cousins now was to see Patty again, not in the least because of his friendship with me, which is quite a recent thing compared to his acquaintance with Patty. I had to admit that though we have been such friends, all he has done for me could easily be accounted for by that American chivalry to women, on which the men over here are so keen as a nation, rather than any particular liking for me as a girl. And I must have a horrid, exacting disposition, because discovering this made me feel absolutely ill. I was so jealous of Patty, because she could perhaps take away my best friend and have him for her lover, that all her pretty little ways and looks quite annoyed me, and I felt I could have slapped her.
Such feelings made me hate myself, for it is so unpleasant finding out suddenly that you are a brute; yet I would not indulge my wicked heart by telling Patty that she ought to marry Mr. Walker. I could scarcely eat any breakfast or dinner, and early in the afternoon I crept out of doors, very miserable. I felt that Vivace was the only being on earth who really cared for me, and even he was more interested at the time in a rabbit hole he had found than in my society. He wouldn't come away from it when I called, so I bundled him under my arm, and walked off with him to the sugar camp, where I could be alone, and think things over, without having people say I looked pale, and ask whether the ice cream festival at Hermann's Corners had given me a headache.
Patty and Ide had decided to make maple candy and "chocolate fudge" after dinner, so that we could have it to eat in the evening, and Mr. Brett and I had promised to help. American girls always seem to make candy if they have nothing else more interesting to do, and usually I think it very entertaining. Carolyn Pitchley's often went wrong, and she would keep several servants busy clearing away plates and spoons, bringing fresh ones, and cleaning out the chafing dish which she had burnt. But Patty and Ide are cleverer; they do everything for themselves; and I should have enjoyed helping, if I had been in a different mood. As it was, I would have realised that I was an outsider, and that maybe they would be gayer without me, though they are always so polite. I had slipped away without speaking to anyone, and as I was pretty sure that no one would come to the sugar camp at this time of day, I could let myself be as gloomy as I liked.
I sat there in the deep green shade of the maples, on the log where Mr. Brett and I had talked the first day I came to the Valley Farm. All the disagreeable things that ever happened to me since I was a child took this opportunity to stir in their graves and come to life again. Then they sat down in front of me in a dreary semicircle, staring me in the face until I couldn't stand it any longer, and began to cry. Vivace was very much surprised, and jumped up with his paws in my lap, as if he were saying, "Whatisthe matter?" This was a comfort, and I put my head down on his, with my arms round his neck, and cried more.
If you once let yourself go, like that, you can't stop. Hearing your own little chokes and gasps makes you pity yourself so much that your heart nearly breaks. I was sobbing out loud, presently, which made Vivace whine, and I had almost begun to enjoy my utter forlornness and the distinction of being the most miserable person in the whole world when a distracted voice exclaimed:
"Why, Lady Betty, Lady Betty, for heaven's sake what's happened?"
I looked up all teary and flushed, and there was Mr. Brett, staring at me with horrified eyes, and his face as desperate as if he had found me struck by lightning or gored by the black and white bull.
I was so ashamed and confused that I couldn't speak, but just sat there gazing up helplessly at him with tears running down my cheeks, and my lips trembling. The most awful look came into his eyes, and he went as pale as I was red.
"My precious one, my darling!" he stammered, and dropping down on one knee by the big log, he put his arms round me.
"Oh!" I said. And then my head was nestling down into his neck, and instead of being wretched I was perfectly happy.
"Who has dared to make you cry?" he asked, holding me close.
"You," I answered.
"I?"
"I thought you were only being kind to me because--because you're an American and it's your duty to a foreigner."
He laughed at that--an excited, happy laugh, with a queer break in it.
"I've been half out of my mind with love for you, ever since the first day I saw you looking down at me in the steerage. Am Iquiteout of it now, or can it be true that you care for me--just a little, little bit?"
"I care for you,dreadfully," said I. "Why, this isn't friendship, is it? It's being in love."
"I should think it was--with me," he said. "It's all of me, heart, soul and body, drowning in love."
"Don't drown," I whispered to him. "I--can't spare you."
After that we didn't say a word, but I hadn't supposed it was possible for any human creature to feel so seraphically happy as I did. I don't know how long a time passed before we even spoke, but it seemed only a minute--a minute stolen straight out of heaven. And he was so handsome and dear that I would have kept that minute forever if I could, for it was impossible to believe that another could be so perfect.
But by and by it did merge into sister minutes, just as good, and we began to talk and tell each other things.
He told me again how he'd loved me from the very first instant, and I told him that after the day on the dock, if not before, I'd never quite had him out of my thoughts for a moment.
"There has always been a sort ofundertoneof you," I went on, "no matter what else I was thinking of, just as Sally says, when you are near the sea you hear it through every other sound."
He liked having me say that, and his eyesaretoo glorious when he likes things that I say.
"I loved you so much," he answered, "that I felt my lovemusthave some power over your heart; it couldn't go for nothing. I knew I wasn't worthy of you, but the love was, for no man in your own world could offer you a greater one. That's my justification for asking you to put your hand in mine. But am I asking too much? Are you sure you won't regret anything you may have to give up?"
"There's nothing I wouldn't give up to be with you always," I assured him. "But I don't see that I shall have to give up much that I really care for. We shall be poor, of course, but I shan't mind that a bit--with you. We can live in a sweet little cottage somewhere, can't we? Or if you have to be in a town, we shall have a wee, wee flat, and it will be such fun looking after it, just like having a doll's house, only a hundred times better. I've never been rich, you know; it's always been rather a struggle, and ever so many of my dresses have been made out of Mother's or Victoria's. I shall learn to cook and sew."
"If I were so poor as all that, darling, I shouldn't be asking you to marry me," said Jim. "I'm better off than you think, for as I told you, I've been doing fairly well lately, and I guess if one of us two ever has to cook it will be I. We might have to do that sometimes, but it will only be if we're camping somewhere."
"I do hope so. It would be glorious!" I exclaimed.
"We can have the cottage or the flat all right, or maybe even both if things go on as well as they're going now," he said, "and there's nothing on God's earth I won't do to make you happy. Heavens! I should think so, after what you're doing for me--trusting me, without knowing any more of me than you've seen in these few weeks——"
"I'd have trusted you to the world's end, after the day you jumped overboard and saved the little boy. Besides, you wereyou; and I'd have trusted you just the same if you hadn't."
"Bless you, my angel. But think of the marriages you might have made."
"I couldn't have made more than one, at least I hope not," said I, flippantly. "I couldneverhave married anyone but you, so I should have had to be an old maid if you hadn't asked me, and think how awful that would have been. Youdon'tregret asking me, do you?"
"Regret? Well--it doesn't bear talking of. I suppose I ought to be able to say that I'd meant to keep my love to myself, and it only sprang out on an ungovernable impulse. But it wouldn't be true if I did. I always meant to ask you, from the very first--though I had little enough hope, even up to to-day, that it would be anything more than friendship on your part. But oh, how hard I did mean to try for you. My one virtue was to wait until you had seen enough of other men--men of a different sort--for you to be sure you didn't prefer one of them. And when accident had put you very near me, I did manage not to lose my head and speak, while you were, in a way, under my protection, for that would have been brutal. But Heaven knows--and Miss Woodburn knows--that I came mighty near it once or twice. I'm thankful I didn't. Now you know the best and worst of the other sort of man, and the best and worst of me. You see the kind of people whose blood runs in my veins, and still you are ready to say that my people shall be your people. I'm not afraid of anything that can happen now."
"You needn't be," I said, slipping my other hand into his--for he had one of them already. "Mother may be vexed with me for going against her wishes, but she will have to forgive me--or even if she doesn't, I shall have you."
"I think she will forgive you, darling," said Jim. "I will make her forgive you."
"I believe you could make anybody do anything!" I cried. "Sally will be glad about this, I know. I can see now that she must always have hoped for it to happen, though I didn't realise what she meant at the time. But we hadsucha talk in the Park the day we met you, about marrying for love. And she advised me that it was the only thing to do. Oh, I am sorry for everybody who isn't in love, aren't you? And that reminds me, I must try and make dear little Patty in love with Mr. Walker. You'll help me, won't you?"
The rest of the day was perfectly divine, and it is almost as delightful to live it over again as I am doing now, in writing the story of it, after we have said good-night.
We forgot all about going back to the house, until some one came out and rang the bell for tea in the field, where we couldn't help hearing. Then we told the cousins our news, and they were immensely pleased. They seemed to think that Jim and I were made for each other, and Mrs. Trowbridge said she had seen that it was coming, all along.
After tea we walked over to call on Sally, and she was just as glad as I thought she would be.
"You are going to marry one of the finest fellows on earth, I believe," said she, "and I congratulate you as well as him."
I do love Sally!
XX
ABOUT JIM AND THE DUKE
It was a very different waking up the next day. My first thought was: "Can it be really true or is it only a dream that I'm engaged to Jim?" And I almost cried for joy when I was quite sure it was true.
We both wrote letters to my mother, and so did Sally. I didn't see theirs, but I could guess what they said, and I could trust Sally to praise Jim. Still, all the praises in the world wouldn't reconcile Mother to what I was going to do. I could hear her saying: "Whoishe?" And I was sure she would add, "How much has he got?" But whatever happened, we were not going to give each other up.
Jim had promised Mr. Trowbridge to pronounce judgment on a horse which he thought of buying, and the man who wanted to sell the creature brought it to the farm about eleven o'clock. Sally had come, to tell about the letter she had just posted to Mother, and Jim was in the sitting room writing his. I think he had forgotten about the horse, until Mr. Trowbridge appeared, looking rather excited.
"Say, Jim," he exclaimed, "Jake Jacobsen's here with the horse. He's round by the barn now, and you might as well have a look at it; but it's an awful brute, and I ain't going to take it, at any price."
"What's the matter with the horse?" asked Jim, sealing up his letter, and looking interested.
"It's mad crazy, that's all; but it's enough for me. I thought there must be something wrong for Jake to be offering it at the price he did. He led it here, and you just ought to have seen the brute dance and make ugly eyes when first Albert and then I tried to get astride of it. Jake swears the only reason he'll sell cheap is because his wife has taken a dislike to the horse, and what she says, goes with him. He's ready to bet anything the animal's as mild as a lamb, only a bit frisky, and certainly it's as handsome a beast as I ever laid eyes on. But he'll have to get rid of it at the fair."
"I'll come," said Jim, getting up.
I jumped up too.
"Oh, please don't have anything to do with such a vicious creature," I begged. "You might be killed."
Jim laughed. "The horse isn't sired that could kill me, I reckon. I know them too well. Why, little girl, I was brought up among horses. You can trust me not to run too big risks, now I've got something to make life worth living."
Stan has often told me that men hate girls to fuss over them, so I bit my lip and didn't tease any more, but I was far from happy. I didn't like the look in his eyes.
"May Sally and I go and see the horse with you?" I meekly asked.
"I'll ride him up to the house, if I find he's worth your seeing," Jim said. "But you mustn't worry if we don't come this way for awhile. I may have to work with him a bit before he's ready to show himself off to ladies."
With that he got his hat and went out with Mr. Trowbridge, who was waiting with a twinkle in his eyes.
"Oh, dear, I feel as if something horrid was going to happen!" I said to Sally, when they had gone.
"Pooh!" said she. "I should be sorry for the animal who tried to play tricks with that young man. You'll find you haven't known him, till you see him on a horse."
"I daresay I'm silly," I admitted. "But I have a presentiment ofsomething. Let's go and sit out on the verandah and watch. We can't see the barn, but if they come out in the farm road we shall catch sight of them."
"All right," said Sally. "The sun's hot on the verandah; but that's a detail."
Already Jim and Mr. Trowbridge had disappeared, but as we were choosing the coolest place for our chairs, we saw a dusty, nondescript old vehicle rattling up the maple avenue, and just about to turn into the narrow road which leads round the side of the house. The hood was up to protect the passengers from the sun, so at first we could see only the driver, and gather an indistinct impression that there were two figures in the back seat.
"Visitors," said I. "I didn't know Mrs. Trowbridge was expecting——" Then I broke off with a little gasp.
"Oh, Sally, it's——"
"The Duke and Katherine!" she gurgled.
All my blood raced up to my head, as if I were going to have a sunstroke.
"No wonder I had a presentiment," I groaned, forgetting my fright about the horse, for a moment. "Do stand by me."
"I will," said Sally.
Mrs. Trowbridge and the girls were busy in the kitchen, making peach jam; so when the wretched old chaise drew up close to the verandah, Sally and I were alone to receive it.
If my sense of humour hadn't been trampled upon by various emotions which were all jumping about at the same time, I should have had hard work not to laugh when Stan and Mrs. Ess Kay scrambled out from under the lumbering old hood, which was like a great coal scuttle turned over their heads. Their hair was grey with dust, their faces purple with heat, and evidently they were both in towering tempers.
Stan looked at me the way he did once when I was small and spoiled his favourite cricket bat by digging up worms with it;--as if he could have shaken me well and boxed my ears, and would if I weren't a girl. As for Mrs. Ess Kay, she smiled; but her smile meant worse things than Stan's frown.
"Hullo, dear boy," I chirped, nervously. "How do you do, Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox?"
Sally murmured something, too, and Stan had the grace to claw off his hat, showing how damp his poor hair was on his crimson forehead, but he didn't even pretend to smile.
"A nice dance you've led us," said he. "By Jove, I wouldn't have thought it of you, Betty."
"Maybe you don't understand yet," said I. "Wait till I've explained, and I'm sure you won't be cross, because you always were a dear."
"It's no good wheedling," he grumbled. "I'm not going to wait for anything. We've come to take you home, and the quicker you pack up and get ready the better."
"What do you mean by home?" I enquired.
"To Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox's house in New York, where she says she'll be good enough to put us up till the next decent ship sails for England."
"I'm not going back to Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox's," said I. "She knows why it's impossible."
"Rot," said Stan. "She's jolly kind to have you, after the way you've acted. Anybody'd think you were eight, instead of eighteen. You deserve to be put on bread and water for making me come three thousand miles to fetch you home."
"I didn't ask you to come," said I, "and you needn't have bothered. Is Vic engaged yet?"
"Yes, she is; the day before I started. What's that got to do with it?"
"A good deal, according to her," I replied. "I'm engaged, too."
"The dickens you are!" exclaimed Stan, getting redder than ever, while Mrs. Ess Kay gave a little start and glared at Sally.
My blood was up now, and I didn't care what I said. The sooner Stan knew everything just as it was, the better.
"Yes, the dickens I am," I echoed, defiantly, "and I don't intend to be treated like a naughty child, by anyone. I've done nothing wrong, or underhand. We've only been engaged since yesterday, though we both fell in love at first sight on shipboard, and we've written to mother and you, this very morning."
"Engaged to a man you met on shipboard!" repeated Stan, looking flabbergasted, and turning from me to Mrs. Ess Kay.
"Tom Doremus!" she gasped. "Yet no, that's impossible. He's in Newport. But there was no one else. I was particularly careful."
"I am engaged to marry Mr. James Brett," I said. "He is——"
"There was no such man on the ship," she broke in, sharply.
Then, suddenly, she almost jumped.
"Goodnessgracious!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Duke, this is tooawful. I remember there was a person in thesteerage. But this is madness. It can't be——"
"He did cross in the steerage," I said. "What of it? He is the best, and handsomest man I ever saw, and there's no finer gentleman than he; you can ask Sally if there is, for she knows him."
"And thoroughly approves of him," Sally finished, taking my hand. "Duke, I assure you Betty is to be congratulated. I understand that the Duchess was not averse to her marrying an American, and the one she has chosen is of the very best type."
"I beg your pardon, Miss Woodburn, but hang the type," said Stan, who never did get on with Sally. "It's absolutely impossible that my sister should marry such a person, and you ought to have known better than to encourage her. This is a hundred times worse than I thought when I flung up the best shoot of the season to come and fetch you, Betty. You and I were always by way of being pals, but I agree with the Mater now; you've behaved disgracefully, and as for the man, whoever he is——"
"Here he comes to speak for himself," cut in Sally, squeezing my hand hard.
There was a sound in the distance; voices shouting, but not the voice I loved. We all looked, and a black horse with a man on his back sprang into sight, like a rocket gone wrong. It was Jim, looking more beautiful than any picture of a man ever painted, his face transported with the joy of battle and triumph, and that fiend in horse shape under him doing all he knew to kill.
It was a terrible and yet a splendid thing to see, that struggle. I hadn't known how I adored Jim, and how I admired him, till I saw him with that smile on his face, sitting the black devil as if he were one with him in spite of the brute's murderous plunges.
The two shot past the house like a streak of lightning, then wheeled back again, the horse clearing a ditch and a five-barred fence from one meadow into another; but he didn't jump in spite of Jim; rather was it in spite of himself. Then there was a series of mad buck jumpings, leaps into the air, and downward plunges. The beast sat on his haunches, and then reared up with a great bound, to waltz on his hind legs and paw the air, snorting. But still Jim smiled and kept his seat without the least apparent effort.
Jim smiled and kept his seat without the least apparent effort"Jim smiled and kept his seat without the least apparent effort"
"Jove! that fellow can ride," muttered Stan, taken out of himself by his man's admiration for a man.
"It's Jim Brett,myJim Brett," I cried. "What do you think of him now?"
But it didn't occur to Stan to answer. I don't suppose he even heard; he was far too deeply absorbed in the passing drama; and in a minute more Jim and the black horse were out of sight again.
But I was not at all afraid for him now. I was only proud, and sure--as sure as I was of life--that he would conquer.
Nobody spoke. Mr. Trowbridge, and Mr. Jacobsen, the disagreeable cowbell man who owned the horse, ran by as fast as they could go, too excited to glance at the house, and Albert and Elisha followed. Mrs. Trowbridge and the girls had come out from the kitchen and were hanging over the nearest fence. Patty was whimpering a little, so I guessed all in a flash that she had cared for Jim. (But she is so sweet she will get over it now he is mine; and already I've made her realise thoroughly what a fine fellow the great Whit is.)
We stood still in our places and watched. I could hear my heart beat, and it had not time to calm down before Jim came riding back on the black horse--a changed black horse, all winning airs and graces, to cover shamed penitence now.
The creature pirouetted up the side road, and Jim stopped him at the verandah, patting the throbbing black neck. "Well? I believe I'll buy him myself," he said smiling to me; and then he saw Mrs. Ess Kay and my brother.
"By Jove, Harborough!" said Stan. "Itisyou, isn't it? Surely it isn't your double?"
"Harborough it is," said Jim, while I listened, dumb with wonder. "How are you, Duke? I was rather expecting you might turn up; but I cabled to you last night to Boodles', and wrote you this morning on the chance you hadn't started."
"Well, I'm blowed," remarked Stan, most inelegantly. "Are you Brett, or is Brett you, or is he somebody else?"
"My name is James Brett Harborough; perhaps you didn't know, or had forgotten," said Jim; and then, jumping off the horse and throwing the lines to Mr. Jacobsen, who had just trotted anxiously up, he came to me.
"Will you forgive me?" he asked.
"I don't know yet what it's all about," I said, dully.
"Miss Woodburn knows; and Mohunsleigh knew. You see, he and I were old pals, so I told him I was in love with his cousin, and was going to try hard to win her, in my own way. You remember Mohunsleigh's friend Harborough. You said the other day you were sorry for him, and--you wished him joy of his love affair."
"Oh, isthatthe reason you pretended to be only Jim Brett?"
"IamJim Brett. But now you understand, will you forgive me?"
"I don't understand yet, except that you must have been afraid I might care more for your money than for you, if I knew. Oh, howcouldyou think such a thing of me? But about the steerage——"
"That was beforehand. It had nothing to do with you, though everything that was to come, came from it. I was abroad for a couple of years, and a friend I knocked up against in Paris last June bet me a thousand dollars that in spite of all my queer experiences, I wouldn't have the pluck to rough it in the steerage of a big ocean liner. I took the bet, and won it. If it hadn't been for seeing you, I should have gone West almost at once after landing in New York, but Ihadseen you, so I stayed. Luckily for me, I'd met Miss Woodburn often in San Francisco and once here. She recognised me in my steerage get-up and was the only one who did; but her tact kept her from spoiling sport. She guessed there must be a game on, and said not a word to anyone. She wouldn't, even if I hadn't managed to send her a note, which I did. I had a conversation with her on board, too, the day before getting in, and--we talked about you. Even then I felt sure you couldn't be the sort of girl to care about money, but——"
"It was partly my fault, Betty," Sally broke in when he paused. "To be quite, quite frank, I knew that the Duchess had fallen in with some ideas of Katherine's, and I couldn't tell how far your bringing up mightn't have influenced your nature, so I encouraged Mr. Harborough to test you by keeping up the story that he was a poor young fellow named Jim Brett. It handicapped him, and kept him away from you; but you were interested in him to start with, and I did my best to keep up the romance. I thought he wouldn't lose by it in the end, and he hasn't. There was the morning in the Park; I managed that; and I got Katherine to send him an invitation to her big party. He was playing a waiting game, because he wanted you to care in spite of every drawback, or else he wouldn't want you to care at all; and then, before he was ready for anycoup, Fate stepped in and did the rest."
"In the best way it could have been done, I think," said Jim. "Now, little girl, do you understand, and have you forgiven me?"
"I'd like to think you could have trusted me from the very first, without playing at all," I answered. "Still--itisromantic, isn't it? And besides, even if I were very angry, I--I'm afraid I'd forgive youanythingafter seeing you ride that horse."
"I'm hanged if I couldn't, too," said Stan. And laughing, the two shook hands.
"And I suppose I shall have to, as well," purred Mrs. Ess Kay, quite kittenish, "if onlysomebodywould introduce Mr. Harborough to me."
(As if anyone cared whether she forgave him or not!)
"What about the Duchess?" asked Sally.
"Oh, when I tell her that Betty's engaged to marry a chap I've met and liked in town--a thorough sportsman, too, it will be all right," said Stan.
I was glad he didn't refer to Jim's money, even though thatisthe thing which will appeal most to Mother. As for me, I am almost sorry he isn't poor, if there's room in my heart to be sorry about anything. But I don't believe there is. It's such a beautiful world, and I shall have two homes in it now; one on each side the water.