CHAPTER III: A CONFESSION
It was a morning of the latter summer-time; a morning of lingering dews,when the grass is never dry in the shade. Fuchsias and dahlias wereladen till eleven o'clock with small drops and dashes of water, changingthe colour of their sparkle at every movement of the air; and elsewherehanging on twigs like small silver fruit. The threads of garden spidersappeared thick and polished. In the dry and sunny places, dozens of long-legged crane-flies whizzed off the grass at every step the passer took.
Fancy Day and her friend Susan Dewy the tranter's daughter, were in sucha spot as this, pulling down a bough laden with early apples. Threemonths had elapsed since Dick and Fancy had journeyed together fromBudmouth, and the course of their love had run on vigorously during thewhole time. There had been just enough difficulty attending itsdevelopment, and just enough finesse required in keeping it private, tolend the passion an ever-increasing freshness on Fancy's part, whilst,whether from these accessories or not, Dick's heart had been at all timesas fond as could be desired. But there was a cloud on Fancy's horizonnow.
"She is so well off--better than any of us," Susan Dewy was saying. "Herfather farms five hundred acres, and she might marry a doctor or curateor anything of that kind if she contrived a little."
"I don't think Dick ought to have gone to that gipsy-party at all when heknew I couldn't go," replied Fancy uneasily.
"He didn't know that you would not be there till it was too late torefuse the invitation," said Susan.
"And what was she like? Tell me."
"Well, she was rather pretty, I must own."
"Tell straight on about her, can't you! Come, do, Susan. How many timesdid you say he danced with her?"
"Once."
"Twice, I think you said?"
"Indeed I'm sure I didn't."
"Well, and he wanted to again, I expect."
"No; I don't think he did. She wanted to dance with him again badenough, I know. Everybody does with Dick, because he's so handsome andsuch a clever courter."
"O, I wish!--How did you say she wore her hair?"
"In long curls,--and her hair is light, and it curls without being put inpaper: that's how it is she's so attractive."
"She's trying to get him away! yes, yes, she is! And through keepingthis miserable school I mustn't wear my hair in curls! But I will; Idon't care if I leave the school and go home, I will wear my curls! Look,Susan, do! is her hair as soft and long as this?" Fancy pulled from itscoil under her hat a twine of her own hair, and stretched it down hershoulder to show its length, looking at Susan to catch her opinion fromher eyes.
"It is about the same length as that, I think," said Miss Dewy.
Fancy paused hopelessly. "I wish mine was lighter, like hers!" shecontinued mournfully. "But hers isn't so soft, is it? Tell me, now."
"I don't know."
Fancy abstractedly extended her vision to survey a yellow butterfly and ared-and-black butterfly that were flitting along in company, and thenbecame aware that Dick was advancing up the garden.
"Susan, here's Dick coming; I suppose that's because we've been talkingabout him."
"Well, then, I shall go indoors now--you won't want me;" and Susan turnedpractically and walked off.
Enter the single-minded Dick, whose only fault at the gipsying, orpicnic, had been that of loving Fancy too exclusively, and deprivinghimself of the innocent pleasure the gathering might have afforded him,by sighing regretfully at her absence,--who had danced with the rival insheer despair of ever being able to get through that stale, flat, andunprofitable afternoon in any other way; but this she would not believe.
Fancy had settled her plan of emotion. To reproach Dick? O no, no. "Iam in great trouble," said she, taking what was intended to be ahopelessly melancholy survey of a few small apples lying under the tree;yet a critical ear might have noticed in her voice a tentative tone as tothe effect of the words upon Dick when she uttered them.
"What are you in trouble about? Tell me of it," said Dick earnestly."Darling, I will share it with 'ee and help 'ee."
"No, no: you can't! Nobody can!"
"Why not? You don't deserve it, whatever it is. Tell me, dear."
"O, it isn't what you think! It is dreadful: my own sin!"
"Sin, Fancy! as if you could sin! I know it can't be."
"'Tis, 'tis!" said the young lady, in a pretty little frenzy of sorrow."I have done wrong, and I don't like to tell it! Nobody will forgive me,nobody! and you above all will not! . . . I have allowed myselfto--to--fl--"
"What,--not flirt!" he said, controlling his emotion as it were by asudden pressure inward from his surface. "And you said only the daybefore yesterday that you hadn't flirted in your life!"
"Yes, I did; and that was a wicked story! I have let another love me,and--"
"Good G--! Well, I'll forgive you,--yes, if you couldn't help it,--yes,I will!" said the now dismal Dick. "Did you encourage him?"
"O,--I don't know,--yes--no. O, I think so!"
"Who was it?" A pause. "Tell me!"
"Mr. Shiner."
After a silence that was only disturbed by the fall of an apple, a long-checked sigh from Dick, and a sob from Fancy, he said with realausterity--
"Tell it all;--every word!"
"He looked at me, and I looked at him, and he said, 'Will you let me showyou how to catch bullfinches down here by the stream?' And I--wanted toknow very much--I did so long to have a bullfinch! I couldn't help thatand I said, 'Yes!' and then he said, 'Come here.' And I went with himdown to the lovely river, and then he said to me, 'Look and see how I doit, and then you'll know: I put this birdlime round this twig, and then Igo here,' he said, 'and hide away under a bush; and presently cleverMister Bird comes and perches upon the twig, and flaps his wings, andyou've got him before you can say Jack'--something; O, O, O, I forgetwhat!"
"Jack Sprat," mournfully suggested Dick through the cloud of his misery.
"No, not Jack Sprat," she sobbed.
"Then 'twas Jack Robinson!" he said, with the emphasis of a man who hadresolved to discover every iota of the truth, or die.
"Yes, that was it! And then I put my hand upon the rail of the bridge toget across, and--That's all."
"Well, that isn't much, either," said Dick critically, and morecheerfully. "Not that I see what business Shiner has to take uponhimself to teach you anything. But it seems--it do seem there must havebeen more than that to set you up in such a dreadful taking?"
He looked into Fancy's eyes. Misery of miseries!--guilt was writtenthere still.
"Now, Fancy, you've not told me all!" said Dick, rather sternly for aquiet young man.
"O, don't speak so cruelly! I am afraid to tell now! If you hadn't beenharsh, I was going on to tell all; now I can't!"
"Come, dear Fancy, tell: come. I'll forgive; I must,--by heaven andearth, I must, whether I will or no; I love you so!"
"Well, when I put my hand on the bridge, he touched it--"
"A scamp!" said Dick, grinding an imaginary human frame to powder.
"And then he looked at me, and at last he said, 'Are you in love withDick Dewy?' And I said, 'Perhaps I am!' and then he said, 'I wish youweren't then, for I want to marry you, with all my soul.'"
"There's a villain now! Want to marry you!" And Dick quivered with thebitterness of satirical laughter. Then suddenly remembering that hemight be reckoning without his host: "Unless, to be sure, you are willingto have him,--perhaps you are," he said, with the wretched indifferenceof a castaway.
"No, indeed I am not!" she said, her sobs just beginning to take afavourable turn towards cure.
"Well, then," said Dick, coming a little to his senses, "you've beenstretching it very much in giving such a dreadful beginning to such amere nothing. And I know what you've done it for,--just because of thatgipsy-party!" He turned away from her and took five paces decisively, asif he were tired of an ungrateful country, including herself. "You didit to make me jealous
, and I won't stand it!" He flung the words to herover his shoulder and then stalked on, apparently very anxious to walk tothe remotest of the Colonies that very minute.
"O, O, O, Dick--Dick!" she cried, trotting after him like a pet lamb, andreally seriously alarmed at last, "you'll kill me! My impulses arebad--miserably wicked,--and I can't help it; forgive me, Dick! And Ilove you always; and those times when you look silly and don't seem quitegood enough for me,--just the same, I do, Dick! And there is somethingmore serious, though not concerning that walk with him."
"Well, what is it?" said Dick, altering his mind about walking to theColonies; in fact, passing to the other extreme, and standing so rootedto the road that he was apparently not even going home.
"Why this," she said, drying the beginning of a new flood of tears shehad been going to shed, "this is the serious part. Father has told Mr.Shiner that he would like him for a son-in-law, if he could get me;--thathe has his right hearty consent to come courting me!"