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Herb of Grace

<h3> CHAPTER XX </h3> <h3> A WHITE SUN-BONNET </h3> My soul its secret hath, my life too hath its mystery: A love eternal in a moment's space conceived. —AROERS One lovely morning in August, about a fortnight after the garden-party at Glebelands, Malcolm Herrick sauntered slowly down the woodland path which the Templetons always called "the lady's mile." His face was set towards Rotherwood, and in spite of his loitering pace there was an intent and watchful look in his eyes; but what his purpose or design might be was best known to himself; for wonderful and devious are the ways of man, and who can fathom them? Presently a tempting tangle of honeysuckle attracted him, and he clambered up the bank in search of it. The bank was dry and slippery, and the honeysuckle was difficult to reach, but Malcolm was not to be conquered. He had just caught hold of the branch, when the far-off click of a gate attracted his attention, and still holding the branch he peeped cautiously through the brambles. The next minute a tall, massive young woman in a white sun-bonnet came into view-actually a white sun-bonnet, such as a milkmaid or farming wench might have worn; but this was no rustic lass who walked so briskly through the woodlands—none but Elizabeth Templeton moved with that free, graceful step, or carried her head in that queenly fashion. In his hiding-place Malcolm had a good view of her face. Her eyes were bright, and she had a soft smile on her lips, as though some thought pleased her—some dream's dream that seemed fair to her inward vision. "Miss Templeton—" then Elizabeth gave a great start, and stood still and looked up at him. "Wait a moment, please," he continued hurriedly; "this branch is so tough and my knife is small. There, I have secured it;" and then, waving the festoon of honeysuckle triumphantly, he scrambled down the bank and stood beside her. Elizabeth shook hands with him rather gravely. "So you have taken up your quarters at the Crow's Nest," she observed as they walked on together. "Yes, I came down last evening, and settled in with all my goods and chattels. I thought I was in the Garden of Eden when I woke this morning and saw all those pink and white roses nid-nodding their beautiful heads at me." "Oh, I remember how the roses clambered into the room," returned Elizabeth in an interested tone. "Yes, and the birds seemed as though they wanted to get up a sort of Handel Festival, only the prima donnas and the big guns were missing. But there was plenty of twittering and bird chatter—I think they were settling the solos." Elizabeth laughed—she was always amused at Mr. Herrick's nonsense. "I have begun by enjoying myself immensely," he went on. "I have eaten a record breakfast and smoked two pipes, and now I have picked all this honeysuckle and met you"—a slight emphasis on the last word. "To tell you the truth, Miss Templeton"—and here he looked at her with a pleasant smile—"the meeting was not purely accidental, I knew it was your morning for the schools." "And you came to meet me?" Elizabeth's manner stiffened; if Malcolm had been thin-skinned he might have suspected that she was not quite pleased at this avowal. "Yes, I was anxious to meet you." Malcolm spoke with quiet assurance. "There is something I wanted to tell you—if I had waited to call at the Wood House this afternoon your sister would have been with you." "And it is something you do not wish her to hear?" and Elizabeth's slight frown vanished. "Well, I thought it would be better to talk it over with you first. I have seen the Jacobis, Miss Templeton, and I must confess that I am not favourably impressed by them." "Cedric is with them now," exclaimed Elizabeth in rather a distressed voice. "Dinah heard from him this morning; he is very happy, having a good old time, as he expresses it. He saw the Godfreys before they left for Scotland." "They have gone then—what a pity!" observed Malcolm. Then Elizabeth looked at him inquiringly. "You mean on Cedric's account. Yes, I am sorry too. Will you tell me all you can about the Jacobis?" And then Malcolm, with masculine brevity and great distinctness, retailed his impressions of the brother and sister. Elizabeth's face grew grave as she listened. "Oh, I am sorry!" she exclaimed. "What will poor Dinah say when I tell her; she is so anxious for Cedric to choose his friends well, and by your account Mr. Jacobi is certainly not a gentleman." "I thought perhaps you would keep this to yourself;" but Elizabeth shook her head. "I dare not; Cedric is her own boy, and I must hide nothing from her. There was only one thing I kept to myself, but then Cedric told it me in the strictest confidence. Mr. Herrick, it is an absurd question, for Cedric is such a boy—but is not Miss Jacobi likely to be the attraction? You say she is so handsome." "I might go farther and say she is a beautiful woman," returned Malcolm. "But tastes differ, you know; I admire Miss Jacobi as I should a picture or a statue, but I could not imagine falling in love with her." "Indeed! I am rather surprised to hear you say that; I thought you were a lover of the picturesque." Elizabeth's tone was a little teasing. "I do not deny the soft impeachment," replied Malcolm somewhat seriously; "but moral beauty and the loveliness of a well-balanced character outweigh, in my estimation, mere outward beauty. Miss Jacobi is a stranger to me certainly, but in my opinion there is something complex and mysterious in her personality; there are hard lines in her face, and her expression is at once cynical and unhappy. One could pity such a woman," continued Malcolm to himself, "but one would never, never yearn to take her to one's heart." Elizabeth looked at him curiously, as though she understood this unspoken speech; and when she spoke again it was with a new and added friendliness. "You are a good judge of character, Mr. Herrick, and I feel I can rely on your opinion. If only the Godfreys were at the Manor House!" "You forget that Beechcroft is at Henley," he observed with a smile. "Oh no, I have not forgotten, but I was thinking that I might have gone down to spy out the land for myself. Of course it would have vexed Cedric, but I should have done it all the same. Well, there is nothing for it but patience. By the bye, Mr. Herrick, we have fixed the date of the Templeton Bean-feast; Cedric will have to come back for that." "Do you think he would care to bring his friends?" he asked in rather a meaning tone. Then at this daring suggestion Elizabeth's eyes opened widely. "Do you think that would be wise, that it might not complicate matters and increase the intimacy?" Elizabeth put this question with manifest anxiety. "We have no desire to have the Jacobis on our visiting-list." "Of course not," was Malcolm's answer, "you know I never meant that; but it would give you and Miss Templeton an opportunity of studying them, and it could be managed without difficulty." "I wish you would tell me how. I suppose we should have to send Miss Jacobi a card of invitation?" "No, I think not—at least not at first. Tell Cedric that he may have carte blanche for his friends, and leave him to follow up the hint. He will answer by return, and tell you that he has asked the Jacobis, and then the card can be sent." "Yes, I see; it is a good idea. I will talk to Dinah, but thank you all the same for your suggestion. I am quite ashamed of bothering you about our concerns; I fear we trespass on your good-nature." "Not at all," returned Malcolm easily. "I was going to ask your advice about a little protegee of my own;" and then Elizabeth lent a willing ear while Malcolm, in his best style, told the story of little Kit. They had turned in at the gate of the Wood House by this time, and the dark firs stretched on either side. Elizabeth had taken off her sun-bonnet, and it dangled from her arm; her eyes were soft with womanly sympathy; never had the charm of her personality appealed so strongly to Malcolm, he scarcely dared to look at her for fear she should discover the truth. "It is too soon, she would not believe it," he said to himself. But as he talked his voice was strangely vibrant and full of feeling; and when the sun-bonnet brushed lightly against him he was conscious that his arm trembled. But Elizabeth was too much occupied with little Kit to notice Malcolm's slight discomposure. "Oh, I am so glad you told me," she said in her eager way. "I really think I shall be able to help you. There is the dearest old woman in the village, Mrs. Sullivan. She lives in a pretty cottage quite close to 'The Plough,' and she was only telling me the other day that she wished that she had another child to mother. Sometimes my sister and I have a little East-end waif and stray down for a few weeks in the summer," continued Elizabeth modestly—"some sick child, or occasionally some over-burdened worker, and we always lodge them at Mrs. Sullivan's. It is not much of a place, but we call it 'The Providence House;' the cottage is really our own property, and Mrs. Sullivan has it rent-free." "Do you think that she would take care of Kit?" "I am sure of it. But, Mr. Herrick, Kit must be our guest, please remember that. Hush," peremptorily, "I will not hear a word to the contrary. And there is something else I want to say. Would not Caleb Martin like to come too? Kit would be strange without him, and there is plenty of room for them both. Think what a month of this sweet country air would mean to him after Todmorden's Lane. You must write to him at once, and tell him to hurry Kit down." "I think it would be better to go up and speak to him myself to-morrow morning," returned Malcolm. He spoke rather reluctantly, but the beaming look of approval that followed this speech rewarded him for the little sacrifice. "Now I call that kind," returned Elizabeth warmly. "Very few people would take so much trouble for a shabby little cobbler and an ailing child," she thought. "How pleased Dinah will be when she hears about it." "The kindness is on your part, Miss Templeton," returned Malcolm. But he was much gratified by her manner. "If Kit and her father are to be your guests there is little enough for me to do; when I spoke to you just now I had quite decided to take lodgings for them at Rotherwood." "Kit is my guest," replied Elizabeth obstinately. "Now, will you come in, Mr. Herrick, and have luncheon with us?" But Malcolm declined this; he would look in later in the day and pay his respects to Miss Templeton; and then he lifted his hat and turned away. Elizabeth stood in the porch and watched him. "He is a good man," she said softly, "and I like him—I like him very much;" but she sighed a little heavily as she turned away. Meanwhile Malcolm was saying to himself in his whimsical way, "It is my destiny—is it not written in the book of fate? The Parcae Sisters three have willed it so. Good heavens, what an enigma life is! Some winged insect whirling in a cyclone would have as much chance of escaping its doom as a human being under such circumstances." Then he stopped, and looked with blank, unseeing eyes down the slanting fir avenue. "It is a mystery," he went on—"the very mystery of mysteries; the Sphinx is nothing to it. A month ago we were strangers—I neither knew nor cared that such a person as Elizabeth Templeton existed; and a week—a little cycle of seven or eight nights and days—has wrought this wondrous change. Am I the same man? Is this the solid earth on which I am walking?" And then he gave an odd sort of laugh, which seemed to hurt him. "My God," he muttered, "how I love this woman!" and his head was bowed as he walked on. The following afternoon, when Malcolm returned from his charitable errand to Todmorden's Lane, he saw the Keston family grouped on the shady patch of lawn in the front garden. Verity, who had Babs in her arms, flew to meet him; but Amias merely waved his pipe and grunted in an amicable fashion. "Oh, how tired and dusty you look!" exclaimed Verity, in the pretty, maternal way that always sat so quaintly on her. "Look at him, Amias; I do believe he has walked all those miles from Earlsfield." "Yea-Verily, you are right, child," returned the giant placidly; and then Verity put down Babs on the grass to sprawl among the daisies. "Sit down," she said, pushing Malcolm with her tiny hands into a big hammock chair; "I am going to make you some fresh tea—iced lemonade is out of the question;" and then she flitted into the house on her usual errand of "hunting the Snark." Malcolm was certainly tired; he had been unable to get a fly at Earlsfield, and the long climb in the heat had rather taken it out of him, so he was well content to lie back in his lounge and let Verity wait on him. "We have had visitors," she observed presently; then Malcolm looked up quickly. "The ladies from the Wood House," she continued. "They were here for quite an hour. You are right, Mr. Herrick, the eldest Miss Templeton is a perfect darling. Amias was just saying as you turned the corner that he would like to paint her as a Puritan lady; the dress would exactly suit her." "She has a very sweet face," endorsed Amias, "and her manners are remarkably pleasing. Yea-Verily fell in love with her because she admired Babs. 'Love me, love my Babs,' don't you know!" "Don't be a goose, Amias! He was as much pleased as I was, Mr. Herrick, when Miss Templeton kissed Baby and made much of her; she said the sweetest things to her, and Babs was so charmed that she actually put up her face and kissed her of her own accord." "The other Miss Templeton is a striking-looking woman of rather uncommon type," observed Amias, blowing away a cloud of smoke rather lazily. "She made herself very pleasant too, and said all sorts of civil things." "I thought her rather formidable at first," annotated Verity, "but I soon discovered that she was interesting; she is very bright and original, and we soon got on very nicely together." "By the bye, Mr. Herrick, they want us all to dine at the Wood House to-morrow; it is to be a comfortable, informal sort of meal. I told Miss Templeton that I had no company manners, as I had lived all my life in Bohemia; and then Miss Elizabeth laughed, and said she was rather unconventional herself, and that she thought I should exactly suit them." "I told you so," responded Malcolm in a low voice. "I suppose there will be no other guests?" "Only the Carlyons," returned Verity. "Mr. Carlyon is the curate at Rotherwood, Miss Templeton told us, and just now his father is staying with him." "Oh, Carlyon junior seems always on the premises," replied Malcolm carelessly; "he is a sort of tame cat. Well, I am off to the Garden of Eden now." But as he stood by his window the nodding roses turned their pink cheeks to him in vain, and wasted their sweetness on the desert air. "He is always there," he muttered; "one is never free from him. Perhaps it is her goodness of heart, she is so kind to every one, and he is her clergyman. Of course it must be that." He frowned and sighed impatiently; but as he turned away he saw the sprays of honeysuckle that he had gathered the previous day lay on the window-sill forgotten and neglected, with all the beautiful creamy blossoms withered and dead. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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