Back Aa

Heriot's Choice

<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2> <h3>ROYAL</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> 'This would plant sore trouble In that breast now clear, And with meaning shadows Mar that sun-bright face. See that no earth-poison To thy soul come near! Watch! for like a serpent Glides that heart-disgrace.' </div> <div class="stanza"> Philip Stanhope Worsley. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> 'My dear boy, were you hiding from us?' Mildred had recovered from her brief shock of surprise; her heart was heavy with all manner of foreboding as she noted Royal's haggard and careworn looks, but she disguised her anxiety under a pretence of playfulness. 'Have you been masquerading under the title of Leonard-du-Bray, my dear?' she continued, with a little forced laugh, holding his hot hands between her own, for Rex was still Aunt Milly's darling; but he drew them irritably, almost sullenly, away. There was a lowering look on the bright face, an expression of restless misery in the blue eyes, that went to Mildred's heart. 'I am in no mood for jests,' he returned, bitterly; 'do I look as though I were, Aunt Milly? Come a little farther with me behind this wall where no one will spy upon us.' 'They have all gone to the Fox Tower, they will not be back for an hour yet. Look, the glen is quite empty, even Etta has disappeared; come and let me make you some tea; you look worn out—ill, and your hands are burning. Come, my dear, come,' but Roy resisted. 'Let me alone,' he returned, freeing himself angrily from her soft grasp, 'I am not going to make one of the birthday party, not even to please the queen of the feast. Are you coming, Aunt Milly, or shall I go back the same way I came?' Roy spoke rudely, almost savagely, and there was a sneer on the handsome face. 'Yes, I will follow you, Rex,' returned Mildred, quietly. What had happened to their boy—to their Benjamin? She walked by his side without a word, till he had found a place that suited him, a rough hillock behind a dark angle of the wall; the cotton-mill was between them and the glen. 'This will do,' he said, throwing himself down on the grass, while Mildred sat down beside him. 'I had to make a run for it before. Dick nearly found me out though. I meant to have gone away without speaking to one of you, but I thought you saw me.' 'Rex, dear, have you got into trouble?' she asked, gently. 'No, do not turn from me, do not refuse to answer me; there must be some reason for this strange behaviour, or you would not shun your best friends.' He shook his head, but did not answer. 'It cannot be anything very wrong, but we must look it in the face, Roy, whatever it is. Perhaps your father or Richard could help you better than I could, or even—' she hesitated slightly—'Dr. Heriot.' Roy started convulsively. 'He! don't mention his name. I hate—I hate him,' clenching his hand, his white artist hand, as he spoke. Mildred recoiled. Was he sane? had he been ill and they had not known it? His fevered aspect, the restless brilliancy of his eyes, his incoherence, filled her with dismay. 'Roy, you frighten me,' she said, faintly. 'I believe you are ill, dear—that you do not know what you are saying;' but he laughed a strange, bitter laugh. 'Ill! I wish I were; I vow I should be glad to have done with it. The life I have been leading for the last six weeks has been almost unbearable. Do you recollect you once told me that I should take trouble badly, that I was a moral coward and should give in sooner than other men? Well, you were a true prophet, Aunt Milly.' 'Dear Roy, I am trying to be patient, but do you know, you are torturing me with this suspense.' He laughed again, and patted her hand half-kindly, half-carelessly. 'You need not look so alarmed, mother Milly,' his pet name for her; 'I have not forged a cheque, or put my name to a bill, or got into any youthful scrape. The trouble is none of my making. I am only a coward, and can't face it as Dick would if he were in my place, and so I thought I would come and have a look at you all before I went away for a long, long time. I was pretty near you all the time you were at dinner, and heard all Dad's stories. It is laughable, isn't it, Aunt Milly?' but the poor lad's face contracted with a look of hopeless misery as he spoke. 'My dear, I am so glad,' returned Mildred in a reassured tone; 'never mind the trouble; trouble can be borne, so that you have done nothing wrong. But I feared I hardly know what, you looked and spoke so mysteriously; and then, remember we have heard nothing about you for so long—even Polly's letters have been unanswered.' 'Did she say so? did she mind it? What does she think, Aunt Milly?' 'She has not complained, at least to me, but she has looked very wistful I notice at post-time; once or twice I fancied your silence a little damped her happiness.' 'She is happy then? what an ass I was to doubt it,' he groaned; 'as though she could be proof against the fascinations of a man like Dr. Heriot; but oh! Polly, Polly, I never could have believed you would have thrown me over like this,' and Roy buried his face in his hands with a hoarse sob as he spoke. Mildred sat almost motionless with surprise. Strange to say, she had not in the least realised the truth; perhaps her own trouble had a little deadened her quick instinct of sympathy, or Roy's apparently brotherly affection had deceived her, but she had never guessed the secret of his silence. He had seemed such a boy too, so light-hearted, that she could hardly even now believe him the victim of a secret and hopeless attachment. And then the complication. Mildred smiled again, a little smile; there was something almost ludicrous, she thought, in the present aspect of affairs. Was it predestined that in the Lambert family the course of true love would not run smooth? Richard, refused by the woman he had loved from childhood, she herself innocent, but self-betrayed, wasting strangely under the daily torture she bore with such outward patience, and now Roy, breaking his heart for the girl he had never really wooed. 'Rex, dear, I have been very stupid, but I never guessed this,' waking up from her bitter reverie as another and another hoarse sob smote upon her ear. Poor lad, he had been right in asserting himself morally unfit to cope with any great trouble; weak and yet sensitive, he had succumbed at once to the blow that had shattered his happiness. 'Hush, you must hear this like a man for her sake—for Polly's sake,' she whispered, bending over him and trying to unclench his fingers. 'Rex, there is more than yourself to think about.' 'Is that all you have to say to me?' he returned, starting up; 'is that how you comfort people whose hearts are broken, Aunt Milly? How do you know what I feel, what I suffer, or how I hate him who has robbed me of my Polly? for she is mine—she is—she ought to be by every law, human and divine,' he continued, in the same frenzied voice. 'Hush, this is wrong, you must not talk so,' replied Mildred, in the firm soothing voice with which she would have controlled a passionate child. 'Sit down by me again, Rex, and we will talk about this,' but he still continued his restless strides without heeding her. 'Who says she loves him? Let him give me my fair chance and see which she will choose. It will not be he, I warrant you. Polly's heart is here—here,' striking himself on the breast, 'but she is too young to know it, and he has taken a mean advantage of her ignorance. You have all been against me, every one of you,' continued the poor boy, in a tone so sullen and despairing that it wrung Mildred's heart. 'You knew I loved her, that I always loved her, and yet you never gave me a hint of this; you have been worse than any enemy to me; it was cruel—cruel!' 'For shame, Rex, how dare you speak to Aunt Milly so!'—and Richard suddenly turned the angle of the wall and confronted his brother. 'I heard your voice and the last sentence, and—and I guess the rest, Rex,' and Richard's wrathful voice softened, and he laid his hand on Roy's shoulder. The other looked at him piteously. 'Are they all with you? have you brought them to gloat over my misery? Speak out like a man, Dick, is Dr. Heriot behind that wall? I warn you, I am in a dangerous mood.' 'No one is with me,' returned Richard, in a tone of forced composure, 'they are in the woods a long way off still; I came back to see what had become of Aunt Milly. You are playing us a sorry trick, Rex, to be hiding away like this; it is childish, unmanly to the last degree.' 'Ah, you nearly found me out once before, Dick; Polly was with you. I had a good sight of her sweet face then, the little traitor. I saw the diamonds on her finger. You little knew who Leonard was. Ah, ha!' and Roy wrenched himself from his brother's grasp as he had done from Mildred's, and resumed his restless walk. 'We must get him away,' whispered Mildred. Richard nodded, and then he went up and spoke very gently to Roy. 'I know all about it, Rex; we must think what must be done. But we cannot talk here; some one else will be sure to find us out, and you are not in a fit state for any discussion; you must come home with me at once.' 'Why so?' Richard hesitated and coloured as though with shame. Rex burst again into noisy laughter. 'You think I am not myself, eh! that I have had a little of the devil's liquor,' but Richard's grave pitying glance subdued him. 'Don't be hard on me, Dick, it was the first time, and I was so horribly weak and had dragged myself for miles, and I wanted strength to see her again. I hated it even as I took it, but it has answered its purpose.' 'Richard, oh, Richard!' and at Mildred's tone of anguish Richard went up to her and put his arms round her. 'You must leave him to me, Aunt Milly. I must take him home; he has excited himself and taken what is not good for him, and so he cannot control himself as well as usual. Of course it is wrong, but he did not mean it, I am sure. Poor Rex, he will repent of it bitterly to-morrow if I can only persuade him to leave this place.' But Mildred's tears had already sobered Roy; his manner as he stood looking at them was half ashamed and half resentful. 'Why are you both so hard on me?' he burst out at last; 'when a fellow's heart is broken he is not always as careful as he should be. I felt so deadly faint climbing the hill in the sun that I took too much of what they offered as a restorative; only Dick is such a saint that he can't make allowances for people.' 'I will make every allowance if you will only come home with me now,' pleaded his brother. 'Where—home? Oh, Dick, you should not ask it,' returned Roy, turning very pale; 'I cannot, I must not go home while she is there. I should betray myself—it would be worse than madness.' 'He is right,' assented Mildred; 'he must go back to London, but you cannot leave him, Richard.' 'Yes, back to London—Jericho if you will; it is all one and the same to me since I have lost my Polly. I left my traps at an inn five miles from here where I slept, or rather woke, last night. I shouldn't wonder if you have to carry me on your back, Dick, or leave me lying by the roadside, if that faintness comes on again.' 'I must get out the wagonette,' continued Richard, in a sorely perplexed voice, 'there's no help for it. Listen to me, Rex. You do not wish to bring unhappiness to two people besides yourself; you are too good-hearted to injure any one.' 'Is not that why I am hiding?' was the irritable answer, 'only first Aunt Milly and then you come spying on me. If I could have got away I should have done it an hour ago, but, as ill-luck would have it, I fell over a stone and hurt my foot.' 'Thank Heaven that we are all of the same mind! that was spoken like yourself, Rex. Now we have not a moment to lose, they cannot be much longer; I must get out the horses myself, as Thomas will be at his sister's, and it will be better for him to know nothing. Follow me to the farm as quickly as you can, while Aunt Milly goes back to the glen.' Roy nodded, his violence had ebbed away, and he was far too miserable and subdued to dispute his brother's will. When Richard left them he lingered a moment by Mildred's side. 'I was a brute to you just now, Aunt Milly, but I know you will forgive me.' 'It was not you, my dear, it was your misery that spoke;' and as a faint gleam woke in his eyes, as though her kindness touched him, she continued earnestly—'Be brave, Rex, for all our sakes; think of your mother, and how she would have counselled you to bear this trouble.' They were standing side by side as Mildred spoke, and she had her hand on his shoulder, but a rustling in the steep wooded bank above them arrested all further speech—her fingers closed nervously on his coat-sleeve. 'Hush! what was that! not Richard?' Roy shook his head, but there was no time to answer or to draw back into the shelter of the old wall; they were even now perceived. Light footsteps crunched over the dead leaves, there was the shimmer of a blue dress, a bright face peeped at them between the branches, and then with a low cry of astonishment Polly sprang down the bank. 'Be brave, Rex, and think only of her.' Mildred had no time to whisper more, as the girl ran up to them and caught hold of Roy's two hands with an exclamation of pleasure. 'Dear Roy, this is so good of you, and on my birthday too. Was Aunt Milly in your secret? did she contrive this delightful surprise? I shall scold you both presently, but not now. Come, they are all waiting; how they will enjoy the fun,' and she was actually trying to drag him with gentle force, but the poor lad resisted her efforts. 'I can't—don't ask me, Polly; please let me go. There, I did not mean to hurt your soft, pretty hand, but you must not detain me. Aunt Milly will tell you; at least there is nothing to tell, only I must go away again,' finished Roy, turning away, not daring to look at her, the muscles of his face quivering with uncontrollable emotion. Polly gave a terrified glance at both; even Aunt Milly looked strangely guilty, she thought. 'Yes, let him go, Polly,' pleaded Mildred. 'What does it all mean, Aunt Milly? is he ill, or has something happened? Why does he not look at me?' cried the girl, in a pained voice. Roy cast an appealing glance at Mildred to help him; the poor fellow's strength was failing under the unexpected ordeal, but Mildred's urgent whisper, 'Go by all means, leave her to me,' reached Polly's quick ear. 'Why do you tell him to go?' she returned resentfully, interposing herself between them. 'You shall not go, Roy, till you have looked at me and told me what has happened. Why, his hand is cold and shaking, just as yours did that hot night, Aunt Milly,' and Polly held it in both hers in her simple affectionate way. 'Have you been ill, Roy? no one has told us;' but her lips quivered as though she had found him greatly changed. 'Yes—no; I believe I must be ill;' but Mildred, truthful woman, interposed— 'He has not been ill, Polly, but something has occurred to vex him, and he is not quite himself just now. He has told Richard and me, and we think the best thing will be for him to go away a little while until the difficulty lessens.' Mildred was approaching dangerously near the truth, but she knew how hard it would be for Polly's childish mind to grasp it, unless Roy were weak enough to betray himself. His working features, his strange incoherence, had already terrified the girl beyond measure. 'What difficulty, Aunt Milly? If Roy is in trouble we must help him to bear it. It was wrong of you and Richard to tell him to go away. He looks ill enough for us to nurse and take care of him. Rex, dear, you will come home with us, will you not?' 'No, she says right; I must go,' he returned, hoarsely. 'I was wrong to come here at all, but I could not help myself. Dear Polly, indeed—indeed I must; Dick is waiting for me.' 'And when will you come again?' 'I cannot tell—not yet.' 'And you will go away; you will leave me on my birthday without a kind word, without wishing me joy? and you never even wrote to me.' And now the tears seemed ready to come. 'This is past man's endurance,' groaned Roy. 'Polly, if you cared for me you would not torture me like this.' And he turned so deadly pale that even Mildred grew alarmed. 'I will say anything you like if you will only let me go.' 'Tell me you are glad, that you are pleased; you know what I mean,' stammered Polly. She had hung her head, and the strange paleness and excitement were lost on her, as well as the fierce light that had come in Roy's eyes. 'For shame, Polly! after all, you are just like other women—I believe you like to test your power. So I am to wish you joy of your John Heriot, eh?' 'Yes, Rex. I have so missed your congratulation.' 'Well, you shall have it now. How do people wish each other joy on these auspicious occasions? We are not sister and brother—not even cousins. I have never kissed you in my life, Polly—never once; but now I suppose I may.' He snatched her to him as he spoke with an impetuous, almost violent movement, but as he stooped his head over her he suddenly drew back. 'No, you are Heriot's now, Polly—we will shake hands.' And as she looked up at him, scared and sorely perplexed, his lips touched her bright hair, softly, reverently. 'There, he will not object to that. Bless you, Polly! Don't forget me—don't forget your old friend Roy. Now I must go, dear.' And as she still held him half unconsciously, he quickly disengaged himself and limped painfully away. Mildred watched till he had disappeared, and then she came up to the girl, who was standing looking after him with blank, wide-open eyes. 'Come, Polly, they will be waiting for us, you know.' But there was no sign of response. 'They will be seeking us everywhere,' continued Mildred. 'The sun has set, and my brother will be faint and tired with his long day. Come, Polly, rouse yourself; we shall have need of all our wits.' 'What did he mean?—I do not understand, Aunt Milly. Why was it wrong for him to kiss me?—Richard did. What made him so strange? He frightened me; he was not like Roy at all.' 'People are not like themselves when something is troubling them. I know all about Roy's difficulty; it will not always harass him. Perhaps he will write to us, and then we shall feel happier.' 'Why did he not tell me himself?' returned the girl, plaintively. 'No one has ever come between us before. Roy tells me everything; I know all his fancies, only they never come to anything. It is very hard that I am to be less to him now.' 'It is the way of the world, little one,' returned Mildred, gravely. 'Roy cannot expect to monopolise you, now that another has a claim on your time and thoughts.' 'But Dr. Heriot would not mind. You do not know him, Aunt Milly. He is so good, so above all that sort of thing. He always said that he thought our friendship for each other so unique and beautiful—he understood me so well when I said Roy was just like my own, own brother.' 'Dear Polly, you must not fret if Roy does not see it in quite the same light at first,' continued Mildred, hesitating. 'He may feel—I do not say he does—as though he has lost a friend.' 'I will write and undeceive him,' she returned, eagerly. 'He shall not think that for a moment. But no, that will not explain all his sorrowful looks and strangeness. He seemed as though he wanted to speak, and yet he shunned me. Oh, Aunt Milly, what shall I do? How can I be happy and at ease now I know Roy is in trouble?' 'Polly, you must listen to me,' returned Mildred, taking her hand firmly, but secretly at her wits' end; even now she could hear voices calling to them from the farther side of the glen. 'This little complication—this difficulty of Roy's—demands all our tact. Roy will not like the others to know he has been here.' 'No! Are you sure of that, Aunt Milly?' fixing her large dark eyes on Mildred. 'Quite sure—he told me so himself; so we must guard his confidence, you and I. I must make some excuse for Richard, who will be back presently; and you must help me to amuse the others, and make time pass till he comes back.' 'Will he be long gone? What is he doing with Roy?' pushing back her hair with strangely restless fingers—a trick of Polly's when in trouble or perplexity; but Mildred smoothed the thick wild locks reprovingly. 'He will drive him for a mile or two until they meet some vehicle; he will not be longer than he can help. Roy has hurt his foot, and cannot walk well, and is tired besides.' 'Tired! he looks worn out; but perhaps we had better not talk any more now, Aunt Milly,' continued Polly, brushing some furtive tears from her eyes; 'there is Dr. Heriot coming to find us.' 'We were just going to scour the woods for you two,' he observed, eyeing their discomposed faces, half comically and half anxiously. 'Were you still looking for Leonard-du-Bray?' But as Polly faltered and turned crimson under his scrutinising glance, Mildred answered for her. 'Polly was looking for me, I believe. We have been sad truants, I know, and shall be punished by cold tea.' 'And Richard—have you not seen Richard?' he demanded in surprise. 'Yes, but he left me before Polly made her appearance; he has gone farther on, and will be back presently. Polly is dreadfully tired, I am afraid,' she continued, as she saw how anxiously he was eyeing the girl's varying colour; but Polly, weary and over-anxious, answered with unwonted irritability— 'Every one is tired, more or less; these days are apt to become stupid in the end.' 'Well, well,' he returned, kindly, 'you and Aunt Milly shall rest and have your tea, and I will walk up to the farm and order the wagonette; it is time for us to be going.' 'No, no!' exclaimed Polly, in sudden fright at the mistake she had made. 'Have you forgotten your promise to show us the glen in the moonlight?' 'But, my child, you are so tired.' But she interrupted him. 'I am not tired at all,' she said, contradicting herself. 'Aunt Milly, make him keep his promise. One can only have one birthday in a year, and I must have my own way in this.' 'I shall take care you have it very seldom,' he returned, fondly. But she only shivered and averted her face in reply. During the hour that followed, while they waited in suspense for Richard, Polly continued in the same variable mood. She laughed and talked feverishly; a moment's interval in the conversation seemed to oppress her; when, in the twilight, Dr. Heriot's hand approached hers with a caressing movement, she drew herself away almost petulantly, and then went on with her nonsense. Mildred's brow furrowed with anxiety as she watched them. She could see Dr. Heriot was perplexed as well as pained by the girl's fitful mood, though he bore it with his usual gentleness. After her childish repulse he had been a little silent, but no one but Mildred had noticed it. The others were talking merrily among themselves. Olive and Mr. Marsden were discussing the merits and demerits of various Christian names which according to their ideas were more or less euphonious. The subject seemed to interest Dr. Heriot, and during a pause he turned to Polly, and said, in a half-laughing, half-serious tone— 'Polly, when we are married, do you always mean to call me Dr. Heriot?' For a moment she looked up at him with almost a scared expression. 'Yes, always,' she returned at last, very quietly. 'But why so, my child,' he replied, gravely, amusing himself at her expense, 'when John Heriot is my name?' 'Because—because—oh, I don't know,' was the somewhat distressed answer. 'Heriot is very pretty, but John—only Aunt Milly likes John; she says it is beautiful—her favourite name.' It was only one of Polly's random speeches, and at any other time would have caused Mildred little embarrassment; but anxious, jaded, and weary as she was, her feelings were not so well under control, and as Dr. Heriot raised his eyes with a pleased expression as though to hear it corroborated by her own lips, a burning blush, that seemed to scorch her, suddenly rose to her face. 'Polly, how can you be so foolish?' she began, with a trace of real annoyance in her clear tones; but then she stopped, and corrected herself with quiet good sense. 'I believe, after all, it is my favourite name. You know it belonged to the beloved disciple.' 'Thank you,' was Dr. Heriot's low reply, and the subject dropped; but Mildred, sick at heart, wondered if her irritability had been noticed. The pain of that dreadful blush seemed to scorch her still. What would he think of her? Her fears were not quite groundless. Dr. Heriot had noticed her sudden embarrassment, and had quickly changed the subject; but more than once that night he went over the brief conversation, and questioned himself as to the meaning of that strange sudden flush on Mildred Lambert's face. Most of the party were growing weary of their enforced stay, when Richard at last made his appearance in the glen. The moon had risen, the heavy autumnal damps had already saturated the place, the gipsy fire had burnt down to its last ember, and Etta sat shivering beside it in her red cloak. Richard's apologies were ample and sounded sincere, but he offered no explanation of his strange desertion. The wagonette was waiting, he said, and they had better lose no time in packing up. He thought even Polly must have had enough of her beloved cotton-mill. Polly made no answer; with Richard's reappearance her forced spirits seemed to collapse; she stood by listlessly while the others lifted the hampers and wraps; when the little cavalcade started she followed with a step so slow and flagging that Dr. Heriot paused more than once. 'Oh, Heartsease, how tired you are!' he said, pityingly, 'and I have not a hand to give you. Wrap yourself in my plaid, darling. I have seen you shiver more than once.' But she shook her head, and the plaid still trailed from her arm over the dewy grass. But Mildred noticed one thing. She saw, when the wagonette had started along the dark country road, that Dr. Heriot had taken the plaid and wrapped it round the weary girl; but she saw something else—she saw Polly steal timidly closer to the side of her betrothed husband, saw the kind arm open to receive her, and the little pale face suddenly lay itself down on it with a look of weariness and grief that went to her heart. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.