Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/588

16, 1860.] on; but if you care for him at all, you should know the springs of his conduct.

That night the letter was written. When written, Evan burned to have Rose reading it to the end, just as condemned criminals long for instant execution. He heard a step in the passage. It was Polly Wheedle. Polly had put her young mistress to bed, and was retiring to her own slumbers. He made her take the letter and promise to deliver it immediately. Would not to-morrow morning do, she asked, as Miss Rose was very sleepy. He seemed to hesitate—he was picturing how Rose looked when very sleepy, and a delicious dreamy languor crept through his veins, and he felt an unutterable pang then. Why should he surrender this darling? And subtler question—why should he make her unhappy? Why disturb her at all in her sweet sleep?

“Well,” said Evan. “To-morrow will do.—No, take it to-night, for God’s sake!” he cried, as one who bursts the spell of an opiate. “Go at once.” The temptation had almost overcome him.

Polly thought his proceedings very queer. And what could the letter contain? A declaration, of course. She walked slowly along the passage, meditating on love, and remotely on its slave, Mr. Nicholas Frim. Nicholas had never written her a letter; but she was determined that he should, some day. She wondered what love-letters were like? Like valentines without the Cupids. Practical valentines, one might say. Not vapoury and wild, but hot and to the point. Delightful things! No harm in peeping at a love-letter, if you do it with the eye of a friend.

“ “I call you so for the last”

Polly spelt thus far when a door opened at her elbow. She dropped her candle, thrust the letter in her bosom, and curtsied to the Countess’s voice. The Countess desired her to enter, and all in a tremble Polly crept in. Her air of guilt made the Countess thrill, scenting prey. She had merely called her in to extract daily gossip. The corner of the letter sticking up under Polly’s neck attracted her strangely, and beginning with the familiar “Well, child,” she talked of things interesting to Polly, and then exhibited the pic-nic dress. It was a lovely half-mourning; airy sorrows, gauzy griefs, you might imagine to constitute the wearer. White delicately striped, exquisitely trimmed, and of a stuff to make the feminine mouth water!

Could Polly refuse to try it on, when the flattering proposal met her ears? Blushing, shamefaced, adoring the lady who made her look so adorable, Polly tried it on, and the Countess complimented her, and made a doll of her, and turned her this way and that way, and intoxicated her.

“A rich husband, Polly, child! and you are a lady ready made.”

Infamous poison to poor Polly; but as the thunder destroys small insects, exalted schemers are to be excused for riding down their few thousands. Moreover, the Countess really looked upon domestics as being only half-souls.

Dressed in her own attire again, Polly felt in her pockets, and at her bosom, and sang out: “Oh, my! Oh, where! Oh!”

The letter was lost. The letter could not be found. The Countess grew extremely fatigued, and had to dismiss Polly, in spite of her eager petitions to be allowed to search under the carpets and inside the bed.

In the morning came Evan’s great trial. There stood Rose. She turned to him, and her eyes were happy and unclouded.

“You are not changed?” he said.

“Changed? what could change me?”

The God of true hearts bless her! He could hardly believe it.

“You are the Rose I knew yesterday?”

“Yes, Evan. But you—you look as if you had not slept.”

“You will not leave me this morning, before I go, Rose? Oh, my darling! this that you do for me is the work of an angel—nothing less! I have been such a coward. And my beloved! to feel vile is such agony to me—it makes me feel unworthy of the hand I press. Now all is clear between us. I go: I am forgiven.”

Rose repeated his last words, and then added hurriedly: “All is clear between us? Shall I speak to mama this morning? Dear Evan! it will be right that I should.”

For the moment he could not understand why, but supposing a scrupulous honesty in her, said: “Yes: tell Lady Jocelyn all.”

“And then, Evan, you will never need to go.”

They separated. The deep-toned sentence sang in Evan’s heart. Rose and her mother were of one stamp, and Rose might speak for her mother. To take the hands of such a pair and be lifted out of the slough, he thought no shame: and all through the hours of the morning the image of two angels stooping to touch a leper, pressed on his brain like a reality, and went divinely through his blood.

Towards mid-day Rose beckoned to him, and led him out across the lawn into the park, and along the borders of the stream.

“Evan,” she said, “shall I really speak to mama?”

“You have not yet?” he answered.

“No. I have been with Juliana and with Drummond. Look at this, Evan.” She showed a small black speck in the palm of her hand, which turned out, on your viewing it closely, to be a brand of the letter L. “Mama did that when I was a little girl, because I told lies. I never could distinguish between truth and falsehood; and mama set that mark on me, and I have never told a lie since. She forgives anything but that. She will be our friend; she will never forsake us, Evan, if we do not deceive her. Oh, Evan! it never is of any use. But deceive her, and she cannot forgive you. It is not in her nature.”

Evan paused before he replied: “You have only to tell her what I have told you. You know everything.”

Rose gave him a flying look of pain: “Everything, Evan? What do I know?”