Anonymous

I n the Canons' Court, between Mr. Bethune's and the Deanery, lived Mr. Warde. He was a pleasant man, well off, artistic, musical—and happy in a life of little work, which left him leisure for his artistic pursuits. He had a rosy, kind face and plump figure; the Bethune children, Marjorie included, went to him before anyone else in times of need. He had often shielded them from offended law.

It was he who set on foot the literary and drawing guilds, arranged concerts, and was the universal handy man for games and social festivities to all the county round Norham. He was about thirty-five, and had a chivalric devotion to Mrs. Bethune and her children, since, as a young man, he had first come to Norham.

Marjorie was so accustomed to this that she did not see what was manifest to other eyes, on her return from school in Munich. She took all his kindness as a matter of course, having no more relation to herself individually than the Bishop's or the Dean's. Since her return, he had been sedulously pursuing his courtship in every way that occurred to him.

This gentleman was standing beside her under the lime-tree at the top of the garden, where Marjorie could superintend the pursuits of her two youngest brothers. They were now busily engaged underground. For a whole week every minute of David's and Sandy's leisure had been spent in digging a deep hole in the corner of the garden devoted to their use. Thence, with infinite patience, passages had been scooped, and the mound of earth thrown up against the wall had come in useful as a toboggan ground.

The little boys had received strict orders that morning that all the earth in the passages of the "cave," which, in a frenzy of labour, the two schoolboys had burrowed out before breakfast, was to be removed before their return in the afternoon. As it got deeper, steps had been conveyed from the house for the descent of the hole. The utility of division of labour had been impressed upon the children. Orme was to fill the baskets; Ross, being surer of his equilibrium, was to carry them up and empty them. If the work was not done, and done properly, the babies would have to play elsewhere; no longer would their presence be tolerated by their elders.

Marjorie was enjoying a new book, whose alluring cover was fit index to its contents. Now and then, between the pages, dark eyes looked at her in a strange and wonderful fashion. When this occurred, she would lift her own, and gaze dreamily over the currant bushes, her breath coming quickly, the colour fluctuating in her cheeks. Upon one such moment Mr. Warde had intruded.

"I thought I would come in and talk to you about your sonnet, Marjorie," he said, looking about for a seat. There was nothing handy except a cleft log—used by the boys as a block for chopping sticks. On this uncomfortable seat Mr. Warde poised himself.

The man, looking at her, thought he might take hope.

"But that wouldn't be fair, would it?" asked Marjorie.

"Oh! we judged the poems yesterday. I didn't propose to alter anything. Mrs. Adeane's is the best, and Lady Esther's next. But—your usual imagination was wanting this time," he said gently.

"I thought it was bad—it seemed so prosaic," Marjorie said humbly. "You see, father's advice always is, not to let imagination go further than it knows."

"Have you never imagined, never thought about love?" he asked softly.

"Often, lately," frankly. "I thought it was a very silly subject to choose."

"Not silly, Marjorie. The loveliest poetry has been written about it, as it is the loveliest subject. Why 'lately'?" he asked.

"To get ideas. They don't come, if you don't think—not to me, at least."

"That way of putting it is new," he said, considering. "Well, Marjorie, I want you to think of it, to imagine all you can of what it means—the new brightness, the new beauty it gives to life; how it transforms all things, even the commonest, so that——" He paused. Marjorie was looking at him in wonder.

Was it something in his glance that brought irresistibly back to her remembrance that look in Mr. Pelham's dark eyes, of which more than once that afternoon she had been thinking? She coloured brightly, and her beautiful eyes grew soft.

"Ah! I see you know what I mean," Mr. Warde said gently.

"Oh! I don't," said Marjorie confusedly. But the man, looking at her, thought he might take hope. He went on:

"It is expressed in all beautiful music, as well as in the best literature and art. It appeals to everyone, because it is natural to all, and answers to something in the heart of every one of us. So you see, Marjorie, knowing you and your gift of imagination, I am disappointed at this bald little verse."

"Father says it is dangerous imagining on nothing," Marjorie replied, plucking up her spirit. "First get facts, absolutely accurate. Then build on them."

"Well, Marjorie, don't you realise that the facts are all about you, that I——Whatever's the matter?"

A yell broke across the summer air, and Marjorie, springing up, bent over the edge of the crater-like hole. At the bottom lay Orme, his basket beside him, its contents upon him. In a second Marjorie had descended underground, and Mr. Warde was left gazing into space.

When she emerged, Orme was in her arms, muddy tears bedewing his cherubic cheeks. "Fall'd," he announced, in a self-pitying tone, to the visitor.

Marjorie reseated herself, her little brother's head upon her breast. As she comforted him, the man observing her grew more in love than ever. Marjorie, soft and gentle, unconsciously rehearsing Madonna attitudes, gave him a thrill of delight. Presently the boy, his conscience uneasy over neglected work, slipped from her knee, and, with muttered remarks on "er, nasty ground," descended again into its bosom.

He had learnt the imprudence of engaging in another man's labour. Resenting the meaner part of filling the baskets for the more stolid and surefooted Ross to ascend and empty, he had been promptly punished for his ambition. His little soul was now sore with the injustice of things.

"Er, nasty steps slipped poor Orme," he said to Ross, watching his careful ascent.

"You not big anuff," Ross answered importantly. "Go and fill er basket. Do what David bidded you."

Meanwhile Mr. Warde had glanced at his watch. Soon, all too soon, this semi-solitude in which he had been fortunate enough to find Marjorie would be invaded by the schoolboys. He was no nearer the end for which he had come, and he could not again drag in Marjorie's little verse for criticism. She glanced at him, as she drew the alluring book towards her, and said, not too politely:

"If you are going to stay, I'll just fetch my work," rising as she spoke.

"No, Marjorie, don't go. There's something I specially wished to say, to talk to you about," he said, becoming a little confused under her unconscious gaze. Could he, after all, disturb this serenity by the suggestion of love and marriage? He felt somehow that the time was not ripe—that they would seem incongruous to her in connection with himself. And yet, if he did not speak, and be quick about it, another man might step in.

"I have had a letter to-day," he said, "offering me a college living."

"Have you?" said Marjorie in a not altogether flattering manner, and looking at him rather as though she were much surprised. She stood poised, ready to fetch the threatened work; her attitude altogether an unflattering one to a lover who has just made an important communication.

"You won't go, shall you?" she went on, her glance going past him to the wall which divided the gardens. Over the top big clusters of the roses in which Mr. Warde delighted nodded gaily, whilst further on the square face of his house was gay with bloom, amid which the two lines of windows stared a little baldly. The blind in each was arranged symmetrically, and in spite of its prim tidiness, even its outside showed that no loved woman ruled within. From her neighbour's house Marjorie's eyes jumped to her own home.

Here there was no symmetry, but its character as a home stood out plain. The nursery windows, distinguished by their guarding bars, were wide open, and the blinds drawn to the top, whilst in the three open windows of her mother's room adjoining the curtains flopped lazily, and the blinds had been adjusted to the sun. Somehow the sight and the difference brought a feeling into Marjorie's heart which had not yet stirred it in connection with Mr. Warde. Hitherto he had not seemed to her to need pity. But now, when he went back into his house—away from her and the homely garden, where vegetables, and currant bushes, and the untidy quarter of the boys, were of more account than flowers, where little feet pattered, and boys' voices were never silent—what would he go back to? The blank windows lit up empty rooms, where no foot but his own stirred. He would find no companionship but that of his music and his books. Marjorie never guessed of the visions that peopled his fireside.

"Shall you go?" she asked, looking at him—then speaking out suddenly the pity her thoughts had called up: "Won't it be very lonely?"

"Very. Sit down please, Marjorie, and listen to me."

Then, as she complied: "When first I came here, ten years ago, your father and mother were very kind to me, and I grew so attached to them and theirs, that I wanted nothing more. I felt no need of the ties other men have or make, because I had—you." Then his tone grew tender. "Do you remember how you used to come round and climb into my study window for your lessons, when the boys began to go to school? You were a bit forsaken then, Marjorie. And then, when you were good—as you weren't always—how a little pony accompanied me on my rides, and then when the pony and the child who rode it had each grown bigger, one day they both disappeared. The child went to school, to come back, nearly grown up, with music oozing out of her fingers' ends. Well, Marjorie" (he had risen, and his face was paling, his self-control vanishing, as he stood looking down on her), "I have waited a long time for that little girl—who has yet seemed always mine—I want her for my wife. Will you go with me, dear, if I go?"

Marjorie gazed blankly into his face. "I? Of course, it is me," she said slowly. "I don't know—I didn't think—how can I leave—everybody?" her voice faltered.

She rose suddenly, putting aside the hand that would have stayed her. There is nothing so cruel as a young thing who has no notion of her power and of the devotion she has stirred.

"I didn't think," she said, cuttingly, "that you wanted payment. I thought—I thought——" And then, not trusting her voice further, she sprang away from his detaining hand, and fled.