Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/589

576 “Ah, Rose! do you compel me to repeat it?”

Bewildered, Rose thought: “Have I slept and forgotten it?”

He saw the persistent grieved interrogation of her eye-brows.

“Well!” she sighed resignedly: “I am yours; you know that, Evan.”

But he was a lover, and quarrelled with her sigh.

“It may well make you sad now, Rose.”

“Sad? no, that does not make me sad. No; but my hands are tied. I cannot defend you or justify myself, and induce mama to stand by us. Oh, Evan! you love me! why can you not open your heart to me entirely, and trust me?”

“More?” cried Evan: “Can I trust you more?” He spoke of the letter: Rose caught his hand.

“I never had it, Evan. You wrote it last night? and all was written in it? I never saw it—but I know all.”

Their eyes fronted. The gates of Rose’s were wide open, and he saw no hurtful beasts or lurking snakes in the happy garden within, but Love, like a fixed star.

“Then you know why I must leave, Rose?”

“Leave? Leave me? On the contrary, you must stay by me, and support me. Why, Evan, we have to fight a battle.”

Much as he worshipped her, this intrepid directness of soul startled him—almost humbled him. And her eyes shone with a firm cheerful light, as she exclaimed: “It makes me so happy to think you were the first to mention this. You meant to be, and that’s the same thing. I heard it this morning: you wrote it last night. It’s you I love, Evan. Your birth, and what you were obliged to do—that’s nothing. Of course I’m sorry for it, dear. But I’m more sorry for the pain I must have sometimes put you to. It happened through my mother’s father being a merchant; and that side of the family the men and women are quite sordid and unendurable; and that’s how it came that I spoke of disliking tradesmen. I little thought I should ever love one sprung from that class.”

She turned to him tenderly.

“And in spite of what my birth is, you do love me, Rose?”

“There’s no spite in it, Evan. I do.”

Hard for him, while his heart was melting to caress her, the thought that he had snared this bird of heaven in a net! Rose gave him no time for reflection, or the moony imagining of their raptures lovers love to dwell upon.

“You gave the letter to Polly, of course.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, naughty Polly! I must punish you,” Rose apostrophised her. “You might have divided us for ever. Well, we shall have to fight a battle, you understand that. Will you stand by me?”

Would he not risk his soul for her?

“Very well, Evan. Then—but don’t be sensitive. Oh, how sensitive you are! I see it all now. This is what we shall have to do. We shall have to speak to mama to-day—this morning. Drummond has told me he’s going to speak to her, and we must be first. That’s decided. I begged a couple of hours. You must not be offended with Drummond. He does it out of pure affection for us, and I can see he’s right—or, at least, not quite wrong. He ought, I think, to know that he cannot change me. Very well, we shall win mama by what we do. My mother has ten times my wits, and yet I manage her like a feather. I have only to be honest and straightforward. Then mama will gain over papa. Papa, of course, won’t like it. He’s quiet and easy, but he likes blood, but he also likes peace better; and I think he loves Rosey—as well as somebody—almost? Look, dear, there is our seat where we—where you would rob me of my handkerchief. I can’t talk any more.”

Rose had suddenly fallen from her prattle, soft and short-breathed.

“Then, dear,” she went on, “we shall have to fight the family. Aunt Shorne will be terrible. My poor uncles! I pity them. But they will soon come round. They always have thought what I did was right, and why should they change their minds now? I shall tell them that at their time of life a change of any kind is very unwise and bad for them. Then there is grandmama Bonner. She can hurt us really, if she pleases. Oh, my dear Evan! if you had only been a curate! Why isn’t your name Parsley? Then my grandmama the Countess of Elburne. Well, we have a Countess on our side, haven’t we? And that reminds me, Evan, if we’re to be happy and succeed, you must promise one thing: you will not tell the Countess, your sister. Don’t confide this to her. Will you promise?”

Evan assured her he was not in the habit of pouring secrets into any bosom, the Countess’s as little as another’s.

“Very well, then, Evan, it’s unpleasant while it lasts, but we shall gain the day. Uncle Melville will give you an appointment, and then?”

At this arch question he seized her and kissed her. The sweet, fresh kiss! She let him take it as his own. Ah, the darling prize! Her cheeks were a little redder, and her eyes softer, and softer her voice, but all about her looked to him as her natural home.

“Yes, Rose,” he said, “I will do this, though I don’t think you can know what I shall have to endure—not in confessing what I am, but in feeling that I have brought you to my level.”

“Does it not raise me?” she cried.

He shook his head.

“But in reality, Evan—apart from mere appearances—in reality it does! it does!”

“Men will not think so, Rose, nor can I. Oh, my Rose! how different you make me. Up to this hour I have been so weak! torn two ways! You give me double strength. No! though all the ills on earth were heaped on me, I swear I could not surrender you. Nothing shall separate us.”

Then these lovers talked of distant days—compared their feelings on this and that occasion with mutual wonder and delight. Then the old hours lived anew. And—did you really think that, Evan? And—Oh, Rose! was that your dream? And the meaning of that by-gone look: was it