by E.S. Grew.
Originally published in The Idler (Chatto & Windus) vol.7 #37 (Jul 1895).
She held out the great bunch of roses towards him.
"Oh, aren't they lovely?" she said. "Smell."
He smelt them critically.
"I'm glad you like them," he replied, after searching in vain for something more brilliant to say.
She buried her pretty face in the flowers again.
"But are you quite sure you meant them for me?" she asked. "I believe you brought them for mamma, and gave them to me as an after-thought."
"You know what they say about second thoughts?"
"I know what they say about second hand. But did you, Robert?"
Robert smiled at her impetuosity.
"Did I what?" he answered.
"I believe you did," she said. "In fact, I'm sure you did. Very well, I shan't have them. I shall give them to mamma as soon as ever she comes home."
"Indeed I didn't," he protested, somewhat alarmed. "I only thought of you. I knew you were fond of roses, Nelly."
"I wonder if you did," said Nelly, suspiciously. "How did you know?"
"I've always known it," he said. "Don't you remember when you were a little girl how you used to come over to the Vicarage to see my father's roses?"
She smiled once more. "And how you used to plunder them for me?"
"Well, I could afford to be generous, you know."
"And do you remember," she continued, "that last time before you went away?"
"Which was that?" he said, though he remembered.
"You haven't forgotten—" said she. "When you had a fight with the butcher-boy?"
"What—and a lady with me?"
"It was because he called out something rude after me." She smoothed her pretty hair as she spoke.
"I know," said Robert. "I believe he called you 'carrots,' Nelly?"
"Yes—shameful, wasn't it? And you said if he didn't beg my pardon you'd punch his head."
"Disgraceful. What else?"
"He said he should like to see you do it."
"And what did I say?"
"You said, 'Hold my hat, Nelly,' and then—"
"No violence, I trust?"
"You hit him in the eye."
"I seem to have some recollection that the offensive operations were not entirely confined to me."
"No; it lasted ever such a long time, and once I was afraid you'd be beaten, and I wanted to cry. But you weren't, and you made him apologise; and your poor cheek was bleeding, and you'd sprained your thumb."
"His head was uncommonly thick."
"He was bigger than you," she said. "But you won't tell me you've forgotten how I took your arm, and we walked home together. And—"
"You bathed my thumb with embrocation," he said, with a rather dangerous approach to tenderness.
"Yes," she agreed, her eyes sparkling; "and then while I was not paying attention—I mean while I was paying attention to your thumb, you—you—"
"That was my cheek, Nelly."
"I think it was mine," said Nelly.
She began to arrange the roses in a great bowl. "But I expect you've forgotten that, Robin," said she.
He hadn't forgotten; he had never hoped that she would remember. For the year since he had been back in England, and had found his old playmate again, he had been trying to screw up courage to remind her of the time when they were sweethearts. His heart was beating fast now. His rather solemn face grew paler, and he nervously picked up one of the roses.
"We were only boy and girl together then," he began, as clumsily as he well could; "and—"
Miss Nelly turned to her flowers with a look which might have been vexation.
"And now you've grown up," she interposed, "and have become severe and formal, and—and—uninteresting. You've changed altogether; and I know you think I ought to have done the same."
"Nell!" he protested.
"And what are you doing with that poor rose?"
He had pulled it to pieces. "I'm sorry," he said; and was silent. Her interruption had been slight enough, but it was more than sufficient. The good moment had gone, and his spirit fell back into the hopelessness with which he had been worshipping ever since he had seen his sweetheart again. Why should he be such a fool as to tell her he was in love with her; and so spoil the playful, provoking friendship she gave to him so graciously. For that matter, he didn't suppose he was the only one in love with her; there were half-a-dozen men he had seen at the house who were in her train, and who were a good deal more likely to interest a pretty, light-hearted girl than he was.
Nelly went on arranging the roses with some feeling that her interruption had been a little too successful. Presently she had finished them, and held the great bowl up at the level of her chin. Her eyes looked audaciously at him over the roses.
"Aren't they sweet?" she said. "What shall I give you for them, Robin?"
He looked at the charming, piquant picture, and for a moment his heart within him melted again. But he was not the man to turn his back on a resolution.
"Well, you might try a little civility, Nell," he said, lightly.
"Oh, might I," inquired Miss Nell, hotly. "You don't set a very good example, Mr. Robert Hilton."
Hilton inwardly cursed his heavy-handedness. "I didn't mean to be offensive," he said, humbly.
"Perhaps it's your idea of being playful," suggested Nelly.
"I never seem able to say the right thing to you."
"You do yourself an injustice, Mr. Hilton."
"I can't get right even now," he replied, sadly.
Her April mood relented a little. "Well, you're sorry, I hope," she said. "Will you say you're sorry?"
"I am—very."
"Then I'll try to forget it; and, besides, I can't be quarrelling with you when anyone else comes."
"Who is coming this afternoon?"
"Nobody very early. We have some people coming to dinner. And the Bagotts will perhaps come in (like you) to see mamma. But there's nobody else except Leonard—"
"Leonard?"
Miss Nelly blushed with a confusion very rare in her. "I mean Mr. Scotter," she explained, very lamely.
"I didn't know you enjoyed the privilege of speaking of him by his Christian name."
She began to arrange the roses with a nervousness which was touched with a slight resemblance to his own of a little time ago. "Well, I call you Robert," she said at last.
Robert was silent.
Nelly went on fingering the roses like a child found out in a fault. Then, perhaps seeing that she would be found out sooner or later—"Besides, I'm engaged to him," she added, desperately.
Hilton got up trembling. The earth had opened under him, "I didn't know that," he said, huskily.
"Didn't you," she replied. "I thought—" But as she caught sight of his stricken face she broke off. She had been angry enough with her tongue for its slip; for she had not meant him to learn of her engagement—of which she feared he would take much too serious a view. But at the sight of his distress, her own annoyance disappeared.
"Oh! Robin," she said, incoherently, "I didn't mean to; I am so sorry."
He pulled himself together. "Why should you be, Nell?" he said, with a poor pretence at a smile.
"I am, indeed," she protested, eagerly. "But you're not angry with me?"—and she took his arm—just as she had done that June afternoon when they were children.
"How could I be?" he replied. "I hope you'll be very, very happy, dear."
She said nothing; and at last he continued with a return of his characteristic brusqueness: "But I think I'd rather not stop and see Scotter this afternoon if you'll forgive me. I've got a lot of work to do."
She let go his arm and walked to the window, feeling an unaccountable impulse to cry. Robert, not trying to say another word to her, went out of the room; and presently she heard the hall door close after him.
Hilton walked stupidly down the little gravelled drive in front of the house, his hands clasped behind him, his mind turning over and over again her words and his. Well, it was all over for him. Perhaps if he'd spoken to her before? No, he told himself; that was all nonsense. She was far too sweet and good and pretty for him. And how gentle she had been over it, and how sorry for him. Perhaps if—
His reflections were cut short by coming into unexpected collision with somebody just outside the gate. He was about to apologise and pass on, when he found himself collared firmly.
"Oh, come, Bobbie!" said his captor, playfully; "this is a trifle too steep! You run into a chap, and then try to cut him, Just look at my hat; and, I say, where have you left your umbrella?"
Hilton recognised, with a spasm of annoyance, that he had come out of the house without it.
"I've been calling on the Marriots," he said, incoherently. "I must have forgotten it."
Mr. Richard Brand, never known to his acquaintances as anything but "Dickie," did not seem to want any further explanation. His facile mind was already actively engaged.
"Well, you're coming away rather early," he said. "Slow, is it? Who have they got there? I don't want to throw myself away, you know."
"You run a considerable risk," Hilton said, dryly. "Miss Marriot was alone when I left."
"Was she? Oh, that's all right." Dickie straightened his faultless tie. "I suppose it wasn't intellectual enough for you, old chap?" he suggested pleasantly; "but I think it's good enough for me."
There was something in the tone which grated unpleasantly on Hilton's ear. But he was resolved to save Nelly from the infliction which he felt sure that Brand's company would be this afternoon.
"I don't think Miss Marriot is very well," he began.
"Oh, I'll soon cheer her up!" said Dickie, confidently. "But I say," he added, as a new idea appeared to strike him; "do you know if that chap, Scotter, is going to turn up this afternoon?"
Hilton was surprised. "I don't know; very likely he is."
"Then it's not good enough. You old humbug!" he continued; "why didn't you say so at first? Look here, where are you going?"
"I'm going back to my rooms."
Brand pondered a moment. "Look here; I've got nothing better to do. I don't mind coming with you."
Hilton's being revolted at the prospect. "I'm going to do some work," he objected, hastily.
"Oh skittles!" rejoined Dickie, elegantly. "You're always rotting about with your confounded work. Give it up for once in a way, and try to imagine you're alive. You come with me to the club."
Hilton declined, with the same excuse.
"Well, I don't care," said Dickie; "I know you want to get rid of me, but I'm hanged if you shall; if you go home I shall come with you to see you don't waste the happy afternoon in industry."
Hilton saw there was no shaking him off, and accepted the inevitable. Dickie wouldn't find him such a pleasant companion, he reflected grimly, that he would want to stay long.
But at the Temple the other was unexpectedly contented with his surroundings. He turned over Hilton's books and reviews; examined his collection of fossils with an interest partly facetious; and good-naturedly offered to send round some rubbish of the kind which, he said, was kicking about his governor's house. He had early asked for a drink; and was good enough to comment favourably on the quality of his host's whiskey. Finally, in the course of his perambulations of the room, he came to the mantelpiece. There were one or two portraits on it. One of them was a photograph of a little girl, with long hair over her shoulders and clear, frank eyes.
"That's a ripping little girl," began Dickie; "who the—"
Hilton cut him short by saying it was a photograph of Miss Marriot. "It was taken five or six years ago."
Dickie looked at the photograph for a little time. "She's not a bad sort," he pursued; "it's a pity she's going to get married. Do you think she really will have him?"
Robert stared. How did Dickie know? Had everybody known, and himself been the only one blind?
"I wouldn't have minded if it hadn't been that chap Scotter; but he is such an ass."
"That would annoy you, Brand."
"Yes, but isn't he? It would have been all right if she'd taken a decent chap. Why, she'd have done better if she'd married you."
"Don't you think we've discussed Miss Marriot sufficiently?" suggested Hilton, coldly.
"Oh, I daresay she doesn't interest you, but that's because you don't understand her. You box yourself up here like one of your own fossils, and forget that there are such things as pretty girls, and that there's more in a pretty girl than all the books in the world."
He had no rival in the conversation.
"Of course, I feel it a bit." He helped himself to some more whiskey and soda, and lighted another cigar. "Why"—after a pause—"there isn't a better chum anywhere than dear old Nelly. It's a shocking nuisance that she's going to marry—especially that idiot Scotter. There's one thing, he won't understand her any more—any more than you do."
"We can't all have your powers of sympathy, Dickie."
"No," admitted Brand, complacently, "it isn't that. But I expect there are not many chaps know Nelly as well as I do. We've always got on well together, and without any nonsense about sentiment."
Hilton steadily regarded the fire.
"And she's a clever girl, too; always knows enough to keep you up to the scratch. You never get bored with Nelly."
Still Hilton found nothing to say.
Brand even now did not feel the restraint in the atmosphere, so absorbed was he in memories. Sitting back in the chair, he watched the wreaths from his cigar. "I don't know any girl, now, I'd so soon kiss as her," he said, reflectively.
Hilton got up hastily. "Do you know what you're saying?"
Brand thought he did; why?
"Do you know that you're insinuating that Miss Marriot allowed you to flirt with her, and—and—" he stammered, "to—kiss—her?"
"Why of course," said Dickie. "Do you suppose everybody's such a cold-blooded flint as you?"
"Then," said Hilton, deliberately, "either you're a liar, or else you're a contemptible hound for repeating it!"
Dickie sprang up; he was as impermeable to irony as an ironclad, but he was by no.means slow-tempered. "What the devil do you mean?" he burst out. "You drivelling idiot! You began it. You asked for it. If you—" he broke off for a moment, speechless, and then went on with rising indignation. "You're not in your right senses," he said. "You stick up every girl on a pedestal, and think she likes it, and then you insult your friends because they're not such fools as you are. I'll be hanged if I stick in your room any longer. Where's my hat?" He started for the door, reached it, and opened it. Then a new thought seemed to strike him. With the knob in his hand, he turned round again. "I say, old man," he began, but Hilton's back was turned. He looked at him a moment irresolutely, and then closed the door softly and went down the stairs.
Hilton stood immovable by the table listening to the retreating footsteps. They died away as, with hesitating hand, he began to nervously sort together papers and books. His eyes fell then on the whiskey and cigars. The latter were carefully replaced on a book-case. It seemed supremely important then that the cigar box should occupy a position with mathematical exactitude. When the spirit decanter was locked away, he glanced round the room with more comfort, as though, at the same time, he had cleared Nelly of all aspersions.
Suddenly his eyes fell on the photograph.
He strode towards the mantelpiece, and took it in his hands. For one moment it looked as if he would throw it into the fire. But he could not. The eyes looked smilingly at him.
"No, I'm hanged if I do," he said, and put it back in its place of honour. He walked to the window to see if there were any traces of Brand still. There were not; and, after waiting a while, he found his own hat, and let himself out—a new-born resolution in his mind. It was dusk of the early autumn evening, and almost dark when he arrived again at the Marriots' house. He walked up the drive which he had traversed a few hours ago, and was almost surprised to find that the trees and the trim border of turf looked very much the same. When the servant let him in, he was a little disconcerted, in spite of his purpose, to find Miss Marriot herself in the hall. She was carrying a pair of rose-shaded candles towards the dining-room.
"Is that you, Robert?" she said, as she saw who it was. "Have you come back for your umbrella?"
He inwardly cursed the umbrella. For a wavering moment he almost thought of accepting this explanation of his return, and leaving his purpose unaccomplished. But it was only a momentary hesitation.
"No," he said, "I came back to ask you something."
"Then come into the dining-room," said she, "and help me to arrange the table."
It was merely a complimentary offer, for Miss Nelly always designed and executed the arrangements of the dinner table herself. She flitted here and there; here twining a sprig of maiden-hair, and there changing the place of a candle. She was dressed for dinner, and the soft light of the shaded candles gleamed on her pretty shoulders, as she leant over them. She wore one of his roses at her bosom. The great bowl of roses was in the middle of the table. As she caressingly touched them he thought she had never looked so beautiful. Presently she looked up at him inquiringly.
"What is it, Robert?" she asked.
"I want to know if you are going to marry that man Scotter?" he said.
This certainly was unexpected.
"I suppose so," said Nelly, nervously; she did not quite understand Robert in this character.
"Do you love him?" he went on.
Miss Nelly stared at him open-eyed. This was not the attitude in which she had generally found Robert. She made an attempt to re-establish the usual balance of authority.
"Really, Robert," she said, with dignity, "I don't see what right you have to ask me a question like that."
"I haven't any right," he said, in a voice which he endeavoured, with rather poor success, to keep steady, "except that I love you."
He could not see her face, which was turned away from him, and she said nothing. The sound of his own voice seemed to protest his folly; but he went on.
"And I couldn't stand your marrying a man you don't love. You don't know what wrong you are doing."
She turned round to face him. Her face was very pale; her mouth set in a curve more disdainful than any he had ever seen there.
"Don't you think you're assuming a good deal," she inquired, icily.
"I'd assume a great deal more to save you from yourself," he said.
"Even to the extent of ruining another man's chances with the girl he's engaged to?"
Hilton staggered under the thrust. Was that the way his conduct appeared to her—that he was striving to dispossess a rival in this underhand way? It was now his turn to be silent. It was a course which did not disarm his censor.
"It never occurred to you," she continued, in the same hard voice, "to tell me you lo—, you cared for me" (she stumbled a little) "until you found somebody else had asked me."
"You know better than that," he broke in; "it was because I was afraid of losing you altogether that I daren't speak. I've loved you ever since I can remember."
"You say that," she said, a little more gently, "but you don't. If you do, it's with a girl you've imagined. You couldn't be in love with me; you don't know a bit what I'm like. I'm—I'm—" her voice was defiant. "I'm a flirt! You've thought me an angel; and I've let other men k—k—kiss me!"
The defiance in her tone melted away, and she turned sharply from him. One of her hands was at the rose in her bosom. He could see the blush stealing along her white neck.
He stepped to her side and tried to see her face.
"I don't care," he pleaded, "Nell, I don't care for anything in the world but what you are. I've always loved you; I always shall love you. Nelly, Nelly. Don't cry, Nell."
One of her hands had dropped to her side; he took it, and thrilled to think it clasped his own a little. He could only just see her pink ear and the shining hair curling about it.
"Always?" he heard her say presently, in a muffled voice.
"Always, Nell."
Suddenly she turned swiftly round; and, before he knew what she would do, had raised his hand to her lips and kissed it. Then she slipped away from him to the door. At that point of vantage she turned again. Her eyes were shining.
"I won't do anything you don't want me to, Robin," she said, meekly, and fled.
It was a moment before he grasped her meaning. Then he understood.