Our Admirable Betty

Chapter 18

So the Major kissed my lady's hand, kissed it not "on one extreme finger-tip," but holding it in masterful clasp, kissed it on rosy palm and dimpled knuckles, kissed it again and again with all the ardour of a boy of twenty; and my lady sighed and-let him kiss his fill.

She wore her rustic attire but her simple gown was enriched here and there, with the daintiest of lace as was her snowy mob-cap; and surely never did rustic beauty blush more rosily or look with eyes more shy than she when at last he raised his head:

"Good morrow to your worship!" said she softly, "I trust your honour slept well?"

"No!" he answered, speaking with a strange, new vehemence, "I scarce did close my eyes all night for thought of you--"

"Of me?"

"And of my-my folly! I looked for you this morning-I wished to tell you ... I ... I--" Seeing him thus at a loss, my lady smiled a little maliciously, then hasted to his relief:

"This morning?" said she gently, "I was making more butter for my poor folk-with the aid of my lord of Alvaston, Captain West, and Sir Jasper. But they proved so awkward with the churn that Sir Benjamin must needs show 'em how 'twas done. And after he made much of my rhubarb wine and would have them all taste it and insisted on the Captain drinking three glasses-poor man!"

"Wherefore 'poor'?"

"Why, sir, 'tis truly excellent wine-to look at, but I fear 'tis perhaps a trifle--sourish!" Here she laughed merrily, grew solemn and sighed, glancing shyly at the Major who stood, head bowed, fumbling with one of the gold buttons of the plum-coloured coat.

"I-trust your ladyship is well after your-your fright of yesterday," said he at last.

"My ladyship is very well, sir," she sighed, "though vapourish!"

"Which means?"

"Perhaps I-mourn my lost divinity."

Her tone was light, but he saw that her lips quivered as she averted her head.

"Betty," he cried impulsively, "I was a fool! All night long I've burned with anger at my folly, for I do know you could never be aught but pure and maidenly no matter what you-you chanced to wear. So do I come craving your forgiveness."

"O Major-Major Jack," she sighed, leaning towards him, all glowing tenderness, "first hear me say you spoke me truth, it-it was indeed-unworthy-a hoyden trick! But I have trod a different world to you-a world of careless gaiety and idle chatter, where nought is serious, reverence unknown and love itself a pastime. So I have loved no man-save my brother Charles for we've been lonely all our days-nay, Major John!" for he had caught her hand to his lips again.

"And I dared think you unmaidenly!" he murmured, in bitter self-reproach.

"So would the mother I never knew had she seen me as-as poor Aunt Belinda saw me-and yet-I vow 'twas monstrous laughable!" and my lady hovered between laughter and tears.

"Am I forgiven?" he pleaded.

"Aye, most fully!"

"Why then-to prove it-will you ... would you--"

"Well, your honour?" she questioned humbly.

"Would you permit me to show you the rose-garden?"

"But I have seen it!"

"Aye to be sure, so you have!" he answered, a little dashed. "Though the roses were scarce in bloom then."

"Truly I do love roses, Major Jack--"

"And they are in the full splendour of their beauty--"

"But-this wall?" she demurred. "And ... no ladder!"

He reached up eager arms. "O Major John!" she exclaimed and drew back, blushing as rosily as the shyest maid that ever tripped in dairy. "'Twould be so-so extreme unmaidenly-wouldn't it?" The Major flushed and his arms dropped. "Though indeed I-do love roses!" she sighed. The Major glanced up eagerly. "But 'tis so awkward and someone might see--"

"Not a soul!" he assured her.

"Then ... if you'll turn your head a moment ... and are sure none can spy ... and will be vastly careful ... and are quite, quite sure you can manage--"

It was managed almost as she spoke, he with an assured adroitness, she with such gracious ease that, in the same moment they were walking side by side over the smooth turf, as calm and unruffled as any two people ever were or will be. "'Tis a dear orchard, this!" she sighed, stopping to pat the rough bark of a huge, gnarled apple-tree.

"'Twas here I first saw you," said he.

"Stealing your fruit!" she nodded.

"It seems long ago."

"And yet 'tis but a few short weeks."

Slowly they went on together, past lily-pool asleep in marble basin, through green boskages amid whose leafy shade marble dryads shyly peeped and fauns and satyrs sported; beneath the vast spread of mighty trees across smooth, grassy levels, by shady walks and so at last to the blazing glory of the rose-garden. Here my lady paused with an exclamation of delight.

"Indeed, indeed, 'tis lovely-lovelier than I had dreamed! Are you not proud of it?"

"Yes," he answered, "more especially since I never owned a foot of land till of late-or a roof to shelter me, for that matter."

"You were a soldier!"

"And a very poor one!" he added.

"And they called you 'Fighting d'Arcy!'" said she, looking into the grey eyes she had been wont to think almost too gentle.

"That sounds strange-on your lips," said he with his grave smile, "I perceive the Sergeant has been talking."

"He has been boasting to me of all your wounds, sir!" The Major laughed. "He is greatly proud of you, sir."

"He saved my life more than once."

"You must have been a very desperate soldier to have been wounded so very often, Major John!"

"Why you see, at that time," he answered, handing her down the steps into the garden, "I wished to die."

"To die?" she repeated. "O, prithee why?"

"This was twenty years ago, I was a boy then," he sighed. "To-day I am--"

"A man, and therefore wiser," said she as they went on together among the roses. "And pray why did you seek death?" she questioned softly.

"Because I had lost the woman I loved."

"So then you-have-loved?"

"As a boy of twenty may," he answered. "She-I was an ensign without influence and prospects and-they forced her to wed a wealthier than I."

"O! And she did?" Lady Betty stopped to stamp an angry foot.

"Indeed they-compelled her--"

"Major John sir, no woman that is a woman can be compelled in her affections!"

"She was very young."

"Pooh, sir! I am not yet a withered and wrinkled crone, yet no one shall or should compel me!" And here, with a prodigious flutter of her print gown, my lady seated herself on rustic bench beside the sundial.

"No indeed," said he, "you are-are different." At this she flashed him a swift up-glance and, meeting his gaze, dimpled, drew aside her garments' ample folds and graciously, motioned him beside her. The Major sat down.

"And was she happy?"

"No!"

"Which doth but serve her to her deserts!" The Major winced, perceiving which, my lady faced him. "How, do you love her yet?" she questioned.

"My lady, she is dead," he answered. Lady Betty turned and leaning to a rose that bloomed near by, touched it with gentle fingers.

"And-do you-love her yet, Major John?" she asked softly.

"I held her in my memory as the sweetest of all women until a few weeks ago," he answered simply. My lady's caressing fingers faltered suddenly.

"She was the third woman in your life?"

"Yes," he answered, "because of her memory I have lived a hard life and let love go by nor thought of it."

"Not once?"

"Not once, until of late." My lady was silent, and, leaning nearer, he continued: "Twenty years ago I gave my love and, being hopeless, sought for death and never found it. So, hating war, I made of war my life. I became a soldier of fortune and wheresoever battle was, there was I; when one campaign ended I went in quest of others. So I have learned much of men, of foreign countries, and war in every shape, but of women and love-nothing whatever. Indeed I should be fighting yet but for this unexpected legacy. And now--" He sighed.

"And now?" she repeated softly.

"Now I find that youth has fled and left but emptiness behind!"

"Poor, O poor, decrepit, ancient man!" she sighed, "with your back so bent and your arms so feeble! So wrinkled, so toothless, and so blind!" And rising she turned away and leaned round elbows on the sundial. Now presently he came and stood beside her, looking into her lovely, down-bent face then pointed to the legend graven on the stone.

"Read," said he, "read and tell me-is't not wisdom?" And, very obediently, she read aloud: