At Laburnum Villa

Deleah as she walked homeward that afternoon (for she had overstayed her allotted time in Bridge Street, and the carriage which was to have picked her up at a certain point had gone on without her) determined that she must leave Cashelthorpe. The words sounded in her own ears as if she were sentencing herself to leave heaven.

Her mother could not be allowed to marry George Boult; she could not remain in the shop. How were she and Bessie to live? With the vanity of youth, which always sees itself in the foreground, Deleah thought she perceived that it was she who must get a living for them all.

In her small distracted head she decided as she walked along that she would hire a little house, start a little school. Perhaps some one would pay the first quarter's rent, and she could pay it back when the pupils came.

"Some one" in days gone by would have meant Sir Francis; but now, living under the same roof with him, seeing in what deference he was held even by his own sister, feeling his reserve, his aloofness from the low concerns of such as she, she had become extraordinarily shy of that great man. Through the daring of ignorance, trusting in that look of serenity and nobility in his face, she had formerly approached him. She believed in his goodness still as she believed in the goodness of God, but the awe of him she had always felt had descended, since she had lived beneath his roof, in a double measure upon her.

Of his sister she had no fear. She would speak to kind Miss Forcus. Miss
Forcus would tell her what to do.

Simultaneously with the formation of this resolve she arrived at the neatly trimmed hedge of Laburnum Villa. For the moment she had forgotten that the place held any interest for her beyond that of the other little houses in their gay gardens she had passed. She glanced at the bright green of the trellis-work front, at the minute weeping willow in a corner of the grass-plot, at the roseplants destined to cover arches and to grow into a bower, by and by. By the front door a clematis had been planted, and the Honourable Charles was stooping over the plant, and striving to direct, in accordance with his own idea of how it should grow, the clinging of the tendrils.

Her light step was perhaps the one step in the world whose music could have withdrawn his attention from that absorbing occupation. He rose to his feet, turning sharply round; and as she wished him good-evening he went swiftly to the gate and swung it open."

"Come in," he said. "I have been waiting for this." He had at the moment such a commanding air, that Deleah had no thought but to obey him.

"I wish to show you my little place," he explained.

Deleah was late, as it was, and had yet some mile and a half to walk, but concluding from the dimensions of the place that no very long detention was threatened, did not demur. So long ago it seemed to her, who had since travelled miles along the road of Experience and Feeling, that the Bridge Street boarder had made love to her when he should have made love to Bessie. He had paid her the greatest compliment it was in his power to pay, and of late she had begun to understand something of what he might have suffered; she wished to be kind to him and to make amends.

So, sweetly appreciative of all she saw, she walked at his side, down the little paths, helped him to remember the names of the annuals, admired the view of the back-yard through a vista of trellis-work arches.

"Do you like it?" he asked her.

Deleah, with her artless desire to please, declared that she liked it very much.

He turned away with a long-drawn breath of content "Come indoors," he commanded. He walked in front to lead the way, but stopped suddenly on the little path and turned to ask her if she knew how long it was since he and she had talked together.

"Quite a long time, isn't it?" Deleah answered him. "But I have not been living at home, you know; I—"

He cut her short abruptly. "It is five months three weeks and two days," he said. "But the time has not been long to me. Looking back it seems that the time has almost flown."

Deleah could not have felt flattered that this was so, but she told him she was glad to know that he was so happy.

"Not happy," he said, "but looking forward to happiness; working for it." With that he went on again, stopping at the hall-door. "I think I've remembered your taste," he said as he threw the door open. "I've carried it out everywhere as far as it was possible."

At that Deleah drew back. "I will look over your house some other time," she said. "It is late. I must be getting home now."

"Do you call the Forcus's place your home?"

"For the present. I am leaving there soon."

"The sooner the better. Come in."

He put a heavy and peremptory hand upon her arm and drew her over the threshold, across the tiny passage called the hall, into one of the two bow-windowed rooms.

"This is the dining-room," he said. "Sit down."

To free her arm from his hand she obeyed him, and with an effort to appear very much at her ease looked about her.

"What a sweet little room!" she said.

"You like it? I thought you would. Look at the picture over the sideboard."

It was a large print—much too large for the room—of "The Last Sleep of
Argyle," and was faced on the opposite wall by a reproduction of "The
Execution of Montrose."

"They're proof prints," he told her proudly. "I remember you went to see those pictures, years ago, when they were on show in Brockenham, and liked them. I've had the chairs covered with red leather 'stead of horsehair. It costs more, but you used to say red was cheerful."

"It is so very nice, Mr. Gibbon."

"In the drawing-room there is a piano. Come and see."

She went, because of that strange new peremptoriness of manner which she felt she had not the moral courage to disobey. The drawing-room had fresh flowers in a vase upon the centre table.

"Did you put the flowers there, Mr. Gibbon?"

"I put them there every day. For you. I have been waiting for you to come to see them. Everything is always ready. You like it all?"

"Yes, indeed."

"It is yours, then. It is all for you. From cowl on the chimney-pot—the kitchen-chimney smoked; I thought it would be inconvenient—to the bunch of honeysuckle on the table. All yours."

"Oh no, Mr. Gibbon."

"All yours. Every carpet has been laid down for you, every chair and table bought. Every seed has been sown, every tree planted. For you."

Deleah, speechless for the moment, looked at the man with eyes grown wide with dismay. His was no tragic figure. He wore the light-coloured, large checked suit affected at that period by young men escaping temporarily from the black-frocked livery of shop or office, his hair was brushed smoothly back and shone with brilliantine, his moustache was glossy with the same admired preparation. His face was extra pale, but Deleah knew it had the trick of paling suddenly and for small cause. She had seen it blanch at a chance encounter with her in the street, or accidental touching of her hand by his. She avoided meeting his eyes—those eyes said to hold something in their expression which redeemed his face from the commonplace—and the wild ardour of their gaze was lost upon her.

"Everything is yours, Deleah; when will you come and take it over?"

"Mr. Gibbon, I told you before. I have not changed."

"Nor I." His lips were lead-coloured and trembling; he was indeed trembling all over. He crossed his arms upon his chest to keep them still. "You are going to be my wife or no one's, Deleah," he said.

She got up nervously from her chair; she tried to speak lightly. "I am going to be no one's, Mr. Gibbon," she said. "As I walked along to-night I have been making up my mind what to do. I shall take a small house for us all, and try to keep a little school. You shall see how well I keep my pupils in order. And, now and then, you shall bring me a nosegay of flowers from your garden—"

"That won't suit me," he said. "I give you no more flowers unless you take them all. Will you take them? Answer."

"Oh, Mr. Gibbon!"

"'Oh, Mr. Gibbon!'" and he mimicked her. "Is that the way to speak to me?
After all the years of my worship, am I still 'Mr. Gibbon' to you?"

"I suppose so," was all poor Deleah could say.

He was standing with his back to the door. He turned swiftly and locked it, then holding the key in his shaking hand, crossed his arms again: "Now!" he said, facing her; "we come to realities now. No more 'Oh, Mr. Gibbon!' no more talk about flowers. Listen. I, Charles Gibbon, love you with a passionate and desperate love that is not going to be played with. Do you, Deleah Day, love me? Say it out, once for all; Gospel truth; as God is in heaven to hear it."

"I don't love you."

"Do you hate me?"

Deleah was frightened, but she was angry too: "Just for the minute I think
I do."

"All the same, hating me, will you marry me, and come to live in the house
I have made for you?"

"No," said Deleah, pale and suddenly breathless. "I won't!"

He listened, panting as if from long running; his chest laboured beneath the grip of his folded arms as if it must burst. For a long minute he glared at her, speechless; and Deleah, glaring back at him wondered was this man with the working, ashen face really their decorous boarder, who had been so assiduous in passing the mustard and pouring out the water? What had come to him? Had she done this? Did he mean to kill her?

He came slowly nearer to her, and it took all the girl's courage to hold up her head, to face him. "I understand, at last," he said. "Now I want you to understand too. So listen to me; and remember; and see if I lie. You belong to me. Never mind what you feel about it. You are mine. You belong to me. Do you hear me?"

"I hear you, Mr. Gibbon."

"Say it after me."

"I will not."

"You belong to me. Belong to me. Belong to me. And while I live you shall belong to no one else."

He turned round then, and unlocked the door. But as she, with a haste which was hardly dignified, would have passed him there, he threw his arms around her, and pulled her fiercely to him, and madly kissed her face.

Frightened and outraged, she fought for liberty, and gaining it, dashed off. She flew down the little neatly rolled gravel path, and out through the freshly painted gate, and once on the road, as if more than life was endangered by delay, she rushed onward at break-neck speed.

Sir Francis Forcus, solemn and serene of face, riding homeward, had his attention drawn to a little figure which flew ahead of him. Riding up to her, he found that she who thus fled lonely as the shades of evening fell along the deserted road, was that little girl, his sister's protÉgÉe, who should have been safe under the shelter of his own roof.

She stood still, breathless and disordered, as he drew up alongside of her. "What has happened? Where is my sister? Why are you alone?" he asked, and looked with astonished disapproval at her scared little white face.

"I was late, and missed the—carriage. I am—running—home," she panted.

He saw that there was more behind, and dismounted. Girls were not trained for physical exertion in those days, they were not nurtured in the belief that they must not be cowards. Deleah was trembling with terror and exhaustion.

"Sit down," he said, and she subsided on the bank. He stood silently by her for a minute, drawing his conclusions. "You have been frightened," he said. "Who frightened you?"

"N-no one," gasped Deleah. "I—ran."

"From what? From whom?" And Deleah could not reply, could only feel the blessed security of his protecting presence, could only look up at him with the trusting, adoring eyes of a child.

He looked back upon the road they had both come; the daylight had not yet faded from the sky, although the shades of evening were beginning to fall; far down the road, where it curved towards the town, the lamps were being lit. By the gate of the last "villa-residence" on the road, a man stood, looking towards the pair by the bank.

"Was that the man who frightened you? That man by the gate?"

"N-no."

She might have saved her soul the perjury. Sir Francis, leading his horse by the bridle, walked back in the direction of Laburnum Villa.

"Come back! Oh, please come back!" Deleah cried; but Sir Francis, paying no heed, went on, till he stopped, bridle in one hand, riding-whip in the other, in front of the man standing on the pathway before his gate.

"You frightened that lady."

"That lady is no business of yours."

"You are my business, you scoundrel," Sir Francis said, and lifted with a threatening gesture the hand that held the whip.

The man did not flinch. He was no coward; he was much the smaller of the two; he was unarmed. "No," Sir Francis said. "Not to-night," and dropped his whip-hand. "But look out for yourself, sir. Take care. I shall have an eye on you."

For a minute he stood confronting the man, who looked back hardily at him. What else he had to say he said by the glance of his eye, by the set of his lips, by his scornfully carried head; then he slowly turned his back, led his horse from path to roadway, and swung himself into his saddle. As he settled himself there, he found the other man by his stirrup.

"Lucky for you you did not use your whip on me, Sir Francis Forcus," he said. "Sure as God, if you had done so I would have had your life."

Sir Francis, looking down on him, cut a light stroke upon the man's shoulder with his whip.

"You asked for it, and you have got it," he said. "Stand out of the way, will you?" and careless whether the other took that measure for self-preservation or not, rode on.

Deleah, unable to see distinctly what occurred, was relieved to find the interview so short, and Sir Francis so quickly beside her again. She had got up from the bank, and was walking briskly homeward when he overtook her.

"I hope you—were not unkind to him," she said timidly. "Mr. Gibbon lived in our house once—"

"Was that Mr. Gibbon? That man with the mad eyes?"

"He was our boarder. He was always very kind."

"To you especially kind?"

"To us all."

"And am I to hear why, as he is so kind, you were running away from him, this evening?"

"I had rather not tell."

He was a man of so much reserve himself that he respected hers. "Very well," he said; and after a minute added, "I am quite sure you were not to blame."

"I don't know," said Deleah, and hung her head, as she walked along.

To blame or not, she was horribly ashamed. She felt always in his society as shy and gauche as an awkward child, and was conscious that it was in such a light he regarded her. She would have died rather than that he should have known of that frantic struggle in Gibbon's arms, of that mad embrace.

Deleah, who had no advantage of excellent training, happened to be naturally musical. She played no difficult music, but her touch on the piano was good. Her voice, by no means powerful, was true and pure and pleasing. To Miss Forcus, who, in spite of the advantages of education, loved the wrong things consistently in music, and liked to be moved to tears by the plaintive songs of Claribel, it was a great pleasure to lie back in her chair, book or embroidery fallen to the floor, and watch Deleah's fingers tripping through the variations of Brinsley Richards's masterpieces; to hear her tunefully lamenting that "she could not sing the old songs," or in cheerfuller mood announcing that she might "marry the Laird" if she would—"the Laird of high degree."

The two ladies had the small drawing-room to themselves in the evening as a rule, but to-night, the fancy took Sir Francis to join them there. Deleah, nervous at playing and singing before him, was too shy to ask to be excused. She had been told that the dead wife had been a fine instrumental performer, and that every evening she had provided for her husband a genuine musical treat.

"I'm afraid I don't play any good music," she said. But Sir Francis, truth to tell, shared his sister's lamentable taste, and if, as he sat silent and pensive, beneath the shaded lamp on the round centre table, while the girl at the piano went through her simple rÉpertoire, his heart was filled with memories of his lost wife, he certainly was not lamenting the works of Mozart and Beethoven which she had so skilfully rendered.

Deleah, however, did not know this, never doubting that her benefactor was a connoisseur of all the arts. Her fingers trembled upon wrong notes—all undetected, had she known—her sweet voice faltered through the songs she was wont to sing so pleasingly. She went off to bed, not daring to look the master of the house in the face, so shocked and jarred and weary she felt that he must be.

"Isn't she charmingly pretty and sweet?" his sister demanded of him. She could never hear praise enough of this new acquisition of hers.

"She has attractive manners, and seems a good young woman."

"I don't allow her to touch any of poor Marion's music, Francis."

"Oh!" he said deprecating such restrictions. "What harm would her playing
Marion's music do?"

"I'm afraid she is going to leave us."

"Indeed? I have been looking on her as a fixture."

"She has been telling me the mother's shop has to be given up."

"It is a case of the shop giving up the mother, I fear."

"This poor little thing says she can't be happy living with us in luxury while the mother and sister are in difficulties. She thinks of taking a quite small house, and getting together a school of little children. It seems a hopeless look-out, Francis."

"It does," he acquiesced, and took up the book he had laid down.

"But, Francis, I wish you would show a little interest. We decided when that poor boy was killed we owed them what reparation could be made. I feel deeply something should be done for this girl. She is too pretty, too young, too delicate and dainty, to fight such a hard fight alone."

"She has her mother and sister."

"Nice women, I am sure, but—helpless."

"I would not call the mother helpless. She has held on, and done her best in that hopeless shop."

"You will see that everything will be pushed on to the shoulders of this little girl!"

"Well then—?" He looked questioningly at his sister's kind face over the top of the book he was reading. Then his eyes fell again to its pages. "I will think about it," he said.

After Ada Forcus had gone to bed he kept his promise:—sitting motionless in his chair, his elbow on the arm of it, his head upon his hand—thinking about it.