Wilmet dropped her head, and made no answer.
'So, since you see,' he continued, 'you will spare me nothing by holding me aloof, will you not let me come and gladden myself while I may in your presence? And then when my time is up it may be more possible to judge-' (there was a faint 'Oh no,' but he heeded it not) '-whether you can bear such an ugly fellow enough to let him look to the time when home claims may be less pressing. I look for no answer. I only want to be able to ask for one three months hence, and I shall beg your brother to put it into my power so to do.'
'Ah! but to have Felix disturbed and worried is just what must not be. It has made him ill already; and if he thought-'
'I promise not to harass him,' said Captain Harewood, gently. 'You may trust me to take care that what I shall say will not cause him any very trying perplexity.'
'If you knew-' sighed Wilmet.
'I hope to know,' he replied. 'I do know enough already to be aware that you stand in no common relation to the rest; and if you have my heart, Wilmet, it must follow that somehow I share in your self- devotion. Do not fear my trying to make you less yourself. I want not to take you away from your burthens, but to share them.'
'Yes, you-that is your goodness; but would it be right in us?' she faltered.
'Leave your brother and me to judge of that,' he said.
They were already at the Bailey door, in the shadow of the buildings, the flood of moonlight lying on the tower above, and one little mysterious lamp under the deep brow of the archway of the passage. No more passed but one 'good-night' from each, he had not even seen her face, under her shady hat; while she hastened to her little room, glad to ascertain that Lance was fast asleep, and with a rush of new sensations bursting on her, against which she was strengthening all the dykes of her resolute nature. 'He-he-that it should be he! how good! how generous! how kind! Oh, it would be so happy! It will make me happy that he only just thought of it, but it won't do, it is no use. I'm not in love with him; I won't be, I'm not, I'm not!'
And as ardently as Wilmet had ever prayed for Lance's life and reason by that little bed, did she beseech not to be tempted to desert her duties; and all night she lay between sleep and waking, ever repeating to herself. 'I'm not in love, I'm not, I'm not!'
CHAPTER XIX. THE HOUSE WITHOUT PILLARS
'And who save she could soothe the boy,
Or turn his tears to tears of joy?'
SAMUEL ROGERS.
Lance's train was at six o'clock, and that by which the sisters were to return to Bexley so little later, that they would await it at the station, so the household was betimes more or less afoot. There was a frenzied scramble of maids and young ladies in hasty toilette; yet breakfast was only forthcoming by personal exertion on the part of the Captain, who made the coffee, boiled the eggs, and sent his brother foraging into the kitchen. Then a message came that mother must see the sweet girl to bid her good-bye; and Wilmet was dragged up to find the paddy good natured face in bed, in an immense frilled nightcap, whence two horn-like curl papers protruded. She was kissed, cried over, and told she was the dearest girl, and Jack the best boy, in the four kingdoms; and while her head was turning round between dizziness at all that this cordiality implied, and a governess's confusion whether these were the four kingdoms of Ireland, or England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, a demand followed for the darling boy; but when she had gravely told the Captain that his mother wanted him, the result was to send him down laughing. 'No, no, I'm not the only darling boy in the world! 'Tis you, Lance. You know the way.'
Between finding her in bed, and being powerfully embraced, Lance's sense of decorum brought him down with his blanched cheeks so rosy red, that the family were choking with suppressed mirth when the omnibus called for the luggage, and the party set forth to walk to the station, Lance in a grass hat, enfolded by the Captain's hands in an ample puggery, and provided with a natty blue umbrella, presented by the Librarian, 'as a shield against the far-darting Apollo.'
'If this had been in my day,' he said, 'some wit would have produced a neat epigram on Phoebus playing his old tricks out of jealousy of Will's verses, but dainty feats of scholarship are gone out of date. Well, Patroclus, when we have you back again, I think we shall none of us mourn over the effects of your generous action.'
Wilmet was near enough to hear, and colour. She had imagined the last night's conversation unknown to all; but Underwood reticence was so incapable of guessing at Harewood communicativeness, that it never entered her brain to suspect the topic of conversation between the three juniors as they walked up the drowsy street.
Thanks to the difficulties of getting under weigh from the Harewood house, there was barely time for John and Lance to take their places, while Mr. Harewood got their tickets, and they were whirled off, leaving the others to promenade the platform, just then a complete solitude.
Mr. Harewood, with the attention of the old school, backed by something warmer, gave Wilmet his arm. He and his son John never seemed to belong to so ramshackle a household as the rest, and he was so gentle and fatherly, that when Wilmet found him aware of all, it was a relief to tell her objections without being answered by a lover. After all, she could only repeat that leaving home was so impossible for her, that, as she murmured, 'He had better not get to like me any more, it would be such a pity for him.'
'That,' said Mr. Harewood, with his air of old-fashioned gallantry, 'depends on the esteem in which wealth or merit is held.'
'And station,' said Wilmet, in an undertone.
'For that, my dear, one would be a fool not to honour you and your brother; besides, it may make you more at ease to hear that my father was an apparitor, and I went to Oxford as a servitor, so that in birth you have the advantage of us. Of course, I do not mean that every one does not in the abstract prefer prosperous matches, but John has a fair independent competence, and can afford to do as he pleases; and, for my part, I should be very sorry if this were not what he pleased.'
'You are so very kind, but surely if-even if-it must be such long waiting, and you would not like that for him.'
'Let us arrive at the if before we settle about the waiting,' said Mr. Harewood. 'In truth, I have long looked on John as so much the most sensible person in my house, that all I feel called on to do is to hope for his success. I know both you and he will be wise enough not to be either selfish or unselfish in the wrong place.'
Wilmet did not quite understand, but she carried away the conviction that she need have no scruple as to the parents' cordial approbation; and she had had her cure from yesterday's sense of want of individual affection. As to the future? Of course it swelled her heart to think of such love and generous kindness, but she tried to believe that she was as much touched by the goodness of the father as by that of the son, and she would be on her guard against herself unless she saw some reasonable hope that home would ever dispense with her. Dear Wilmet; would she not at any other time have thought it an outrage to think of such a possibility? At any rate, she thought, nobody but Felix need ever know.
Little guessed she, as Robina sat opposite, kept silent by the presence of two stout old females, that the child was revolving the question whether she might tell Cherry. She knew that Wilmet would not like her affairs to be discussed without her own permission; but it seemed unfair that when all the Harewoods were open-mouthed, her own sister should know nothing. After all, much would depend on the chances of a tete-a-tete.
At the station stood Clement: 'That's right! I thought you would come by this train. What a comfort! How is Lance?'