A Houseful of Girls

S >> Sarah Tytler >> A Houseful of Girls

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In a moment Annie saw what Rose had seen some time ago, but had not
taken it upon her to put in so many words for Annie's benefit. It was
of this moment she had, by an unerring instinct, stood in mortal
terror, from the first dawn of her acquaintance with Harry Ironside,
to the afternoon when he had succeeded in getting an introduction to
her in the matron's room at St. Ebbe's, soon after the scene in the
operating theatre. Then he had bowed low, muttered a few words in
confused greeting, and looked at her with all his man's heart in his
eyes; and she had felt by a sure, swift intuition, that, as she valued
her dearly held personal freedom and her allegiance to her family,
there must be war to the knife between her and this self-willed young
man. She must, as discretion is the better part of valour, flee from
him, while refusing to own, even to herself, any more humiliating
reason for the flight than her duty, the honour of St. Ebbe's, and the
folly of Rose in playing into his hands.

Now Annie was caught, and had to listen to him whether she would or not,
while she and not he quaked with fright and agitation. For he stood
before her, like a conqueror already, in the little room with its
shelves of phials, which they had all to themselves, where burly farmers
and iron-gray corn-factors would soon be thronging in the course of
transacting their every-day business.

But presently she forgot all about herself in the interest of the tale
he had to tell, and told well in his newly-found courage and coolness,
in his personal modesty and professional enthusiasm. He had just taken
his degree as she knew. He and his sister Kate had inherited a
competence from their parents. He might look about him till he found a
lucrative and agreeable country practice in a choice neighbourhood,
where he could command good society and a little hunting, shooting, and
fishing in their seasons. Or he might be on the watch for a West End
London practice, which, while affording him all the interests and
amusements of town, ought to bring him speedily into notice, and raise
him, step by step, to the height of his profession. He had begun his
medical career by thinking of both these eventualities as desirable,
each in its kind, and had gone on cherishing a leaning to the first,
till--he must say it--her example and influence had inspired him with
greater ardour in the cause of science and of humanity. He had made
inquiries and had heard of a post--in fact he had got the refusing of
it--in connection with a new settlement, a fresh attempt to plant a
colony where the climate was favourable on one of the great African
rivers. His income at first would be small, and he must take his share
of the hardships and labours of those who aimed at being more than
gold-diggers or miners in the diamond-fields--that is, pioneers of
civilization. The prospect, so far as it referred to scientific
investigations, and to a large increase to accredited stores of
knowledge, was simply splendid. Farther, he was assured of the sympathy
and support of the leading men among the colonists, since they had
already, to their credit, sought his co-operation. Those of them who
were in the van--on the spot--had gone so far as to lay the foundation
of an hospital, in addition to a church, to deal alike with black men
and white, to labour for their spiritual and physical healing in common.
He had almost made up his mind to take the post, but he wished to ask
her opinion and advice first.

She was tempted to say she was no authority, but her truthfulness
forbade the subterfuge. She could not meet his grave blue eyes and put
him off with an evasive answer. She spoke bravely and wisely.

"I think it would be most right and honourable for you to go. With your
ability and training you might furnish invaluable aid to a young colony;
while it would be like another college course for you, with nature for
your teacher. Any young man of spirit and philanthropy, with love for
his calling, might well covet the chance. If the colony flourish, you
and your profession, and the hospital you speak of, will flourish with
it, and have as fine a future before you as you can desire. If the
scheme fail, you can but return to England; and you will not have lost
the time which a young man can well spare. For you will bring back all
you have gained from a far wider sphere of usefulness, and from a
fresher experience than you could ever hope to secure by staying at
home. But if what you really want," Annie corrected herself, with a
twinkle in her eyes and a curl of her lips, in the midst of her
earnestness, "is the shortest and safest road to growing well-to-do
within the briefest space of time, you had better adopt the latter
alternative. If I had been a man and a doctor, I should have tried the
former."

"That is enough," he said with conviction.

"But what will your sister say?" she hastened to inquire, in order to
turn the conversation from ominous personalities.

"Oh! it will be a blow to poor little Kate," he owned regretfully,
"because she is too young to go out with me at once, and set about
keeping house for me as she has always proposed--a rough, primitive
style of housekeeping it will be out there for many a day. But she is
not without pluck, and she is as true as steel, though I say it. She
must learn some of your fearlessness and faith, and make the best of
things. She must go to one of our aunts in the meantime, and when
matters are smoother and easier, and the fate of the colony is decided,
perhaps she may join me. I do not believe that there is any danger to
speak of from the native tribes, only it will not be drawing-room work
for some time to come. You see it is not the same with a girl like Kate
as it would be with a woman like you," he had the boldness to insinuate.
"You would be a tower of strength in yourself from the beginning; you
might be the making of a newly-founded hospital."

"Poor Kate!" said Annie, hastily apostrophizing the girl she had been
said to ignore, and speaking in accents of far deeper pity than she had
any idea of.

"And what do you say?" he turned upon her.

"I?" she cried in much confusion. "I have said my say."

"No," he answered; "unless you mean to send me away to the ends of the
earth without a shred of hope. You cannot do that."

"I think you are taking advantage of me," she protested, but quite
meekly and diffidently for Annie. "I have never been even civil to you
till Tom Robinson was in danger, and then I had to put all my private
feelings aside on his account. Before that I was more than rude."

"And you are a little sorry now? Confess it, Annie, when I am going off
all alone, so far as old friends are concerned, to Central Africa, at
your bidding."

"Not at my bidding," she declared hastily; "it is too bad of you to say
so."

"And you are going to be far kinder in the end than in the beginning,"
he persisted. "You are going to say, 'Harry Ironside, if you ever come
back, whether it is to stay or to go out again to your colony, you will
find me waiting for you as your earthly reward.'"

"Of course you will come back," she exclaimed vehemently, thrown off her
guard; "but _you_ had much better wait and look out for some more
gracious person to welcome you."

"I don't care for gracious persons," said the foolish fellow scornfully;
"that is, for persons who are always gracious whether they like or
dislike their company. But I say," he went on, in an eager boyish way,
which was not unbecoming or inharmonious where his young manhood was
concerned, only natural and pleasant, "I should care for the best and
brightest and bonniest woman in the world being gracious to me; I would
give much to make her like me, though I know I am far behind her in
cleverness and goodness."

"Nonsense," cried Annie, quite testily. "I shall be used up in hospital
service by that time," she remonstrated, keeping to the far future. "A
faded woman with a sharp tongue would not be a great reward."

"I ask nothing better than a woman whom I could love, and who might love
me."

"But you deserve something better," she said, in a softer, lower tone.

"Never mind what I deserve, if I get what I have wished, longed, and
prayed for since the first moment I saw you--think of that, Annie."

"I can't," she said, almost piteously, while she suffered him to take
her hand. "I meant it all to be so different. I was so proud of my
independence; and I never, never will forfeit it, remember, Harry
Ironside, till all my sisters are started in the world, and father and
mother are made more comfortable. Oh! it would be doubly a shame in me
to fail them."

"I am content to wait for my prize," he said, daring to kiss her lovely
cheek, and he was content--for the moment.

"And you must not breathe a word of what has happened," she charged him.

But here he grew restive. "I must, dearest. Why, it would be doubly
dishonourable not to speak at once to Dr. Millar, confined as he is to
his chair; you cannot fail to see that."

"They will all laugh at me," sighed the subdued Annie, with comical
ruefulness. "Rose will laugh, and May. I believe even Dora and mother
will laugh."

"Let them." He gave the permission with cheerful insensibility to the
ordeal, even though Annie's feelings were so much involved in it. "It
may be a warning to some of them." Then he was so callous as to add,
"Who cares though the whole world, including Tom Robinson, were to join
in the guffaw."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, looking up with bright sweetness, "I think I could
bear it if I heard Tom's voice in the chorus. He used to have rather a
foolish, nervous laugh, for so sensible and brave a man. But I am sure I
should not think it foolish, or anything save delightful, if I heard it
again."

CHAPTER XXIII.

SECOND THOUGHTS AND LAST WORDS.

Dr. and Mrs. Millar could make no objection to Dr. Harry Ironside as a
suitor for their daughter. It was all the other way. They were highly
satisfied with the young man's antecedents and credentials, and yet Dr.
Millar was a good deal taken aback. He had grown to look on nursing as a
career for Annie, and to take pride in her excellence in it, as he would
have done had she been his son and a young doctor. He could not help
feeling as if marriage interfered a little with his views for her. He
had to recall that Ironside was a very fine young fellow, with a
commendable spirit of inquiry in medical matters. He would do credit to
his profession, and Annie, especially if she went with him to a new
colony, might work in his company, and be his right hand.

Mrs. Millar had too much good sense and womanly experience to approve of
long engagements, and she did not like the chance of Annie's going to
Africa--still she would fulfil what Mrs. Millar considered the highest
and happiest destiny for a woman, that of becoming the wife of a worthy
man. As to Africa, the little Doctor, a fixture in his chair, told her,
"My dear Maria, we shall simply be giving hostages to Providence, for
man was told to occupy the earth, and carry civilization and redemption
to its utmost bounds."

To spare Annie's feelings, her relations kept her engagement and their
laughter well in the background, while Dr. Harry Ironside, having probed
the Russian fever to the bottom, and seen nearly the last of it,
returned in triumph to London, to make arrangements for his medical
mission.

As for Annie, in her eagerness to escape from the rallying she had
provoked, she talked incessantly about going back to St. Ebbe's, where,
however, she was not yet due. A longer leave of absence had been granted
to her, in consideration of the fact that her holiday had been mainly
spent in hard work in the impromptu hospital at Redcross. She would not
have accepted the additional grant apart from the circumstance that
Harry Ironside was in London. Annie admitted to herself, in the secret
recesses of her heart, that now it had come to this, she would fain have
passed these last precious weeks near her young lover. But she would not
consent to give occasion to Rose, or any other person--not even to
Harry Ironside himself--to think or say that she, Annie Millar, was
already not able to live without him. Annie's wings might be clipped,
but she would be Annie proud and "plucky" to the last; and her lover,
instinctively knowing her to be true as steel, loved her the better
because of her regard for what she considered his credit as well as her
own. The pride was only skin deep; the pluck was part of the heroic
element in Annie.

Rose had been delayed in her work. She had not found it in her heart to
walk about taking sketches when the good friend who had so much to do
with the commission was little likely to see its completion. But when
Tom Robinson could sit up, walk into the next room, and go back to his
own house, she felt at liberty to set about her delightful business, in
which her father took so keen an interest. She lost no time in starting
every fine day in pursuit of the selected views, to put them on canvas
while their autumnal hues were still but tinges of red, russet, and
gold.

Rose was mostly waited on by May, who took much satisfaction in helping
to carry and set up the artist's apparatus, feeling, as she said, that
she was part of a painter when she did so.

Dora had been with Rose, May, and Tray at a pretty reach of the Dewes.
The elder sister was returning alone, along the path between the elms
by the river, near the place where Tom Robinson had come to Tray's
rescue, when she met him face to face. He was taking what
"constitutional" he was able for, and enjoying the light breeze which
was rippling the river, just as it rippled the ripe corn and fanned the
hot brows of the men who were working the corn machine in the field
beyond.

Dora had seen and spoken to him several times since his illness, but
there had been other people present, and now the old shy dread of a
_tete-a-tete_ again took possession of her. She would have contented
herself with a fluttered inquiry after his health, and a faltering
remark that she ought not to detain him. She would have hurried on,
as if the errand on which she was bound demanded the utmost speed,
supremely wretched while she did so, to notice how pale and worn he
still looked when she saw him in the broad sunshine. She would have
mourned over the circumstance that he wore no wrap, though there was
always some damp by the river, and speculated in despondency whether
it could be right for him, while he still looked so ill, to be walking
thus by himself? What would happen if faintness overtook him, and he
could not accomplish the distance between him and the town?

Tom Robinson, delicate though he looked, quiet as he was, would not let
Dora have her way. He turned and walked back with her, which ought to
have set one of her fears at rest. And his appearance must have belied
him, for he was clearly in excellent spirits, with not the most distant
intention of being overcome by faintness.

"This is very pleasant," he said, with a smile, and his smile was a
peculiarly agreeable one.

Dora could not tell whether he meant the day, or the road, or her
company, or even her summer dress, which was fresher and better cared
for than when he had encountered the family group "place-hunting" in
London. Dora had owned more leisure lately, and, absurd as it might
sound, her heart had been singing with joy, so that she could not
resist making her dress in keeping with the gladness of her spirit.
Her little fingers had been cleverer than they had ever shown
themselves before in the manufacture of a frock and the trimming of a
hat which would not have disgraced the taste and execution of Miss
Franklin. Yet the materials were simple and inexpensive to the last
degree--a brown holland and a shady brown hat, and about the frock and
the hat some old Indian silk which in its mellowed gorgeousness of red
and maize colours softly reflected the hues of Rose's parrot tulips.

Dora did not dare to ask her companion what he thought so pleasant. It
seemed right to take it for granted that it was the weather, so she
answered quickly, Yes, it was a fine day for the harvest, which she
believed was going to be a good one this year.

"Our present encounter is more tranquil than our last, near this very
spot," he went on, still smiling. "Perhaps it is as well that there are
no disturbing elements of collies and terriers on the scene, for though
I am getting on famously, I am not sure that I am up to the mark of
dragging Tray and a giant assailant to the edge of the bank, and
pitching them head-foremost into the water."

"I should think not," said Dora briefly.

"How 'little May' screamed, and you stood, as white as a sheet,
valorously aiming your stone."

"We were great cowards, both of us," admitted Dora, smiling too; "and I
am thankful to say Tray has been much better behaved since he was at the
veterinary surgeon's."

"There was room for improvement," Tom Robinson said, with the gravity of
a judge.

"I left him on in front, begging to May for a bit of chalk."

"It is as well that it was not for a bit of beef," he said. Then he
suddenly changed the subject. "Do you know that I have something of
yours which has come into my hands that I have been wishing to give
back to you ever since I was a responsible being again?"

As he spoke, he unfastened for the second time in their acquaintance the
tiny vinaigrette case from his watch-chain, and handed it to her.

Dora flushed scarlet, and took it without a word.

"I got it one night in the course of that fever, when I was at the
worst, and I know you will like to hear that I am sure it did me good.
The first thing that I recollect after a long blank, which lasted for
days, I believe, was feebly fingering and sniffing at the little box,
with a curious agreeable sense of old association. Then I was able to
look at it, and recognize it as my mother's vinaigrette. She had let me
play with it when I was a child; and when I was a boy, subject to
headache from staying too long in the hot sunshine in the cricket-field,
she used to lend me her vinaigrette for a cure. But I knew that I had
asked you to have it, and that you had done me the favour to accept it.
The fascinating puzzle was, how had it come back to me? At last I
questioned Barbara Franklin. She could not tell any more than myself at
first, and was equally puzzled, until she remembered your sister Annie's
running into the room on the night when you were listening for news of
my death, and asking for a smelling-bottle, and your fumbling for an
instant in your pocket, and giving her something. That made it perfectly
plain."

Too plain, Dora reflected in horror, for what might not Miss Franklin
have suspected and communicated in addition to her cousin?

"I was glad I had it in my pocket," said Dora, stammering. "I took it up
to London with me, and--and found it often refreshing in the middle of
the heat and fatigue. I am thankful to hear it was of use to you, who
have the best right to it."

"No," he said emphatically, "though it was of the greatest use. My
cousin Barbara said also that you were very sorry for me. Dora, was that
so?" Tom himself blushed a little in asking the question, as if he had a
guilty consciousness of having taken rather a mean advantage of Dora
Millar, first by coming so near to death without actually dying, and
then by listening to what his kinswoman had to say of Miss Dora Millar's
state of mind at the crisis.

On Dora's part there was no denying such a manifest truth; she could
only utter a tremulous "yes," and turn her head aside.

"That was good of you, though I do not know that I am repaying the
goodness properly," he said, with another smile, very wistful this time.
"For I must add, that hearing of it tempted me to wonder once again
whether you could ever learn to think of me? If you cannot, just say no,
and I'll cease from this moment to tease you" (as if he had been doing
nothing else save besiege and pester her for the last year and a half!).

Dora could not say "no" any more than she could say "yes" straight out,
though she was certain that to be kept any longer than was absolutely
necessary in a state of acute suspense was very bad for him in his
weakened health. By a great effort she brought herself to say in little
breaks and gasps, "I do not need to learn, Mr. Tom, because I have
thought of you for a long time now--long before you were so good and
generous to all of us--almost ever since you wished--you asked--what I
was so silly and so ungrateful as to refuse."

He drew her hand through his arm and held it tightly; he could not trust
himself to say or do more. He was almost as shy as she was in the
revulsion of his great happiness.

She struggled conscientiously to continue her confession. "I had thought
hardly at all of you before then. Girls are so full of themselves, and I
did not know that you wished me to think of you. I seem to see now that
if you had given me more time, and let me grow familiar with the idea,
even though we were 'donkeys,' as Annie and Rose say, and though we
were choke-full of youthful folly----" She stopped short without
finishing her sentence, or going farther into the nature of what she
seemed to see.

"But I besought you to take time, Dora, love," he remonstrated. "You
forget, I urged you to let me wait for the chance of your answer's being
different." He could not help, even in the hour of the attainment of the
dearest wish of his heart, being just to his old modest, reasonable
self.

"Yes," she said, with the prettiest, faintest, arch smile hovering about
the corners of her mouth. "But men ought to be wiser than to take simple
girls at their first word, which the girls can never, never unsay,
unless the men bid them. Now I'll tell you how malicious people will
view the present situation. They will say that I refused you point blank
when I thought we were well off, then got you to propose again, and
graciously accepted the proposal, when I knew we had not a penny in the
world. I own it looks very like it, and it is partly your fault; you
should not have let me go the first time. But I don't care what people
say, so long as there is not a word of truth in it."

"Nor I," said Tom undauntedly. "They may also say that I was able to
make myself useful to your family, and like a very tradesman, traded on
the usefulness, buying a reluctant bride with it. But what do we care
when we love each other, and God has given us to each other? 'They
say,'--what do they say? Let them say."

There was not the shadow of a cloud the size of a man's hand on Dr. and
Mrs. Millar's pleasure in their daughter Dora's marriage to Tom
Robinson. For instead of going with Annie to Africa, or starting on a
mission of her own to bring May's college fees from Jamaica, Dora
remained at Redcross to be Tom Robinson's dear wife and cherished
darling. Mrs. Millar had long seen, in her turn, that Dora could not do
better. The fine old shop, and the fantastic shade of poor Aunt Penny,
had both become of no account. The single thing which troubled Mrs.
Millar was that the instant Lady Mary Pemberton heard of the wedding in
prospect, she invited herself to come down to it.

Dora's sisters, with the charming inconsistency of young women, were not
only acquiescent in her undignified fate--they were jubilant over it.

It did not arrest, though it subdued the general congratulations, when
it was discovered that the event made Harry Ironside all at once both
envious and aggressive. He could not see why, if Dora Millar were
marrying a rich man, and he himself had a sufficient income not merely
to make a satisfactory settlement on his wife, but to do his part in
helping her relatives, who would also be his from the day he married
her, that his marriage should not take place as soon as Dora and Tom
Robinson's. In place of an indefinite engagement, with thousands of
miles of land and sea, and all the uncertainties of life into the
bargain, between him, Harry Ironside, and Annie Millar, would it not
be much better that he should carry away with him the brightest,
bravest woman who ever asked little from a new colony; who, in place
of asking, would give full measure and running over? For Annie was not
like poor dear little Kate--Annie would be a godsend, even though she
had to go the length of learning to fire a revolver as a defence
against lions and hostile natives. It would be nothing else than
savage pride in Dr. Millar, Harry continued to argue, to decline to
let Tom Robinson defray May's small expenses at St. Ambrose's, whether
she won a scholarship or not. He was a man with an ample fortune, as
well as the nicest fellow in the world, who was going to be not only
May's coach, but her brother-in-law. In like manner it would be
downright churlish and positively unkind to Dora if her parents
refused to occupy the pleasant small house with the large garden
belonging to Tom Robinson, and close to what would be their daughter's
house. It was conveniently vacant, and looked as if it had been made
for a couple of elderly gentle-folks, who were not rich, but were
comfortably provided for. In fact, it had been fitted up by the late
Mr. Charles Robinson for just such a pair, who had in the course of
nature left the house empty.

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