Read Ebook: Addie's Husband; or Through clouds to sunshine by Gordon Smythies Mrs

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Ebook has 1711 lines and 79076 words, and 35 pages

u here, miss, in his dog-cart about twenty minutes ago. He saw you lying in a dead faint under a tree in the grove as he was driving home from Kelvick. I hope you feel better now; I bathed your foot in hot water according to his directions, and the swelling went down a good deal. The doctor will be here in a minute. Ah, here he is already!"

Dr. Newton, after a hurried inspection, says that the ankle is only slightly sprained, bandages it up again, orders an embrocation to be applied twice a day, and then speeds off to a dying patient.

"You are looking much better, Miss Lefroy; are you quite free from pain now?"

Addie turns with a start and finds the new master of Nutsgrove standing behind her.

He is a tall heavily-built man of about thirty-eight, keen-eyed, rugged-featured, with a dark strong face, the lower part of which is entirely concealed by a tawny brown beard hanging low on his broad chest. A decidedly powerful looking plebeian is Tom Armstrong of Kelvick.

"Thank you--almost," she answers, a little flurried by his massive incongruous appearance in that well-known room. "I feel quite restored now; and I have to thank you, Mr. Armstrong, very much for your prompt and kindly rescue."

"Pray don't mention it, Miss Lefroy; I was only too glad to have been of assistance to you. You quite startled me at first, you looked so still and white lying on the ground."

"I wish he'd sit down, or move away, or do something," thinks Addie impatiently; "he's so big, he oppresses me and spoils the room." Aloud she says, with a slightly nervous laugh, "I fell from the tree, you know, and broke your lovely branch. It was so--so funny! I had just been reading about the hanging gardens of--of--what's its name?"

"Babylon."

"Yes, Babylon--when down I came with such a thud! I suppose I must have fainted then, or something, though I can't understand how I did such a silly thing; it's the first time in my life it ever happened."

"You must have had a very heavy fall."

"Oh, but I've had much worse falls than that! I've come through trap doors in lofts no end of times. I crashed through a glass-house once and cut myself horribly. I've been bitten by dogs, had my hands squeezed in doors and wedged in machinery--all sorts of accidents, in fact--and I certainly never fainted after them. I'm sure I don't know what the boys will say when they hear of it." She stops suddenly, with an air of startled dignity, seeing the ghost of a smile hover round her host's bearded mouth. "But I am detaining you, Mr. Armstrong; pray--"

"You are not indeed, Miss Lefroy," he answers easily. "I am free from business in the afternoon. Would you not like me to send a message to your aunt to let her know where you are, as the doctor thinks it advisable that you should rest here for an hour before moving again?"

"It is not necessary, thank you. I told her I should probably not return until the evening, so she won't be uneasy. I'm very sorry to have to trespass so long on your hospitality," she says stiffly.

He waves aside the apology without comment.

"You must have found it very strange to awake and discover yourself in this room, Miss Lefroy. Did you know where you were at once?"

"For whom?"

"My dog and cat; we had one each. I gave Andrew to Mr. Rossitor, but the poor Widow disappeared two days before the--the--auction, and I have never seen her since."

There is a short uncomfortable pause.

"You--you were fond of your old home, were you not, Miss Lefroy?" he asks presently.

The girl's gray eyes flash angrily, her cheeks deepen to a dusky glow; she answers not a word. He looks at her seriously, a little sadly, in no whit abashed by the eloquent rebuke of her silence. She glances at the clock and half rises.

"I--I really must be going now, Mr. Armstrong; my aunt will be getting uneasy, and my foot feels much better."

"Won't you at least wait to take a cup of tea, Miss Lefroy? The carriage is not round yet--let me persuade you."

She hesitates; her eyes fall on the tea-tray that is being brought that minute into the room, bearing most appetizing fare--a pile of hot-buttered toast, a jug of delicious cream, home-made plum-cake, a few dishes of fresh fruit resting on cool green leaves.

The servant lays his burden on a side-table, preparing to officiate, when he is interrupted by a shrill cry from Miss Lefroy.

"Our old Crown Derby set! Our dear old set! Oh, have you got it--have you really got it? Mr. Armstrong, Mr. Armstrong, let me pour out the tea; do--just for this once! I always did it--always since I was seven years old--and I never broke anything. Let me--do!"

Mr. Armstrong laughs outright at this impulsive appeal, at the eager, childish face and outstretched hands. He motions to the butler to bring the table to Miss Lefroy's couch. Blushing somewhat at the effect of her outburst, and heedless of medical advice, she struggles into an upright position and softly caresses the delicate surface of the sugar-basin.

"There was a chip on the lip of the cream-jug. Yes, it's there still. Hal did it when he was a baby. I see you've had a handle put on to this cup. How neatly it is done!" sighs Addie, discontentedly acknowledging to herself that even during his short tenancy the bachelor-master of Nutsgrove has made some marked efforts to remove the stains, rents, seams of their untidy reckless childhood, to purify his orderly household from all trace of their damaging footprints, as Bob said he would. What wonderful penetration, what knowledge of the world the dear boy had! Yes, all would come to pass as he had prophesied; a few years more and she would not know the old home again. This was her last glimpse, her farewell view; that handle to the cup was the beginning of the end, the key-note to the reign of paint, of varnish, of vandalic renovation and commercial "improvements" that were to wreck the home she loved.

But Addie does not linger long over these somber forebodings, for the urn is hissing at her elbow, and duty and instinct claim her undivided attention for the moment. In virtue of her twelve years' office she has arrived at a pitch of perfection in the art of tea-making which commands the family respect. Before the tea-pot she reigns supreme; no one ever questions her authority or presumes to criticise the quality of her brew, and her sarcastic information in reply to a request for a fourth cup--"Certainly; as long as there's water there's tea"--is always received in meek silence, from fear lest she, being a hot-tempered and ofttimes hopelessly huffy young person, might throw up office and leave the family at the mercy of either Pauline or Aunt Jo, both of whom have been tried and found dismally wanting during her temporary illnesses. She knows to a grain the quantity of sugar each member requires, to a drop the cream; she knows who likes "mustard," whose nerves and tender years exact "wash," who requires a sensible and palatable "go between."

Therefore, Addie unable to throw aside the patronizing attitude of years, more or less overcome by the beloved familiarity of her surroundings, rattles the enemy's rich-toned crockery with the same freedom and brisk importance as if she were handling Ellen Higgins's coarse "chaney" in the farm parlor.

"Do you take cream and sugar, Mr. Armstrong?"

"Cream and sugar," he repeats stupidly, as if half asleep--"cream and sugar? How? Where?"

"Where?" Addie answers, a touch of elder-sisterly impatience in her voice. "Where? In your tea, of course!"

"I beg your pardon, I'm sure. How dull I am! Yes, both, please."

This is the first time in his thirty-eight years of life that a lady has presided at Tom Armstrong's tea-board, and the strangeness of the circumstance has for the moment paralyzed his attention. He has had a motherless, sisterless, almost homeless childhood; no woman's gentle influence and refining contact have smoothed the rugged upward path that he has been climbing for more than a quarter of a century. In his springtide, when men's fancies are apt to "lightly turn to thoughts of love," he was too absorbed in prosaic business and ambitious dreams of wealth and power to have time for sweethearting like most young fellows of his age and position. He has never strolled down country lanes on soft Sabbath morns, his arm encircling the plump waist of some apple-cheeked Mary Jane or Susan Ann; he has never picnicked with her under scented hawthorn-hedges, or drunk tea with her, seasoned with shrimps and radishes, at rustic inns or in beer-tainted summer-houses. So to him the unusual position is unmarred by even shadow-clouds of dead joys and by-gone pleasures. Addie's fresh flower face awakes no ghost of fevered memory to taunt him with the sweets of lost youth.

"Here is your tea, Mr. Armstrong; you must tell me if it is right. I don't know your tastes yet."

"It is delicious," he answers slowly, while a sudden thought strikes his musing brain, flooding it with a stream of sunshine--a thought he has never entertained before. What a pleasant thing it would be to have a woman, a young, fresh-faced, gray-eyed woman like Miss Lefroy, to sit by his fireside every night and hand him his tea, just as she does that moment, with that quaint inimitable little air of business-like patronage, of half-matronly, half-childish, yet wholly graceful self-possession! Yes; how very pleasant it would be! He has a house now, a rapidly-growing estate--he has a position of unimpeached respectability, if not of aristocratic quality--he has a clear future, a clean past, a goodly name at his banker's--why should he not take a wife to himself at last, and create ties to dispel the gloom of coming age--a wife just like Addie Lefroy--who would grace his hearth as she does, who would refine and enliven with her graceful youth the atmosphere of the heavily-draped room, which already he has begun to find so still and wearisome after the bustling life outside his den at the factory in Kelvick?

A wife just like Addie Lefroy--not one whit more elegant, more beautiful, more fascinating, but just as she is--soft-faced, irregular-featured, simple-mannered, gentle-voiced, yet with a suggestion of hot-breathed, breezy youth about her every movement, her every gesture. Yes; if ever he marries, it will be some one like her, very like her--her exact counterpart, in fact; and where is he to find that? That is the question. Rapidly, while he sips his tea, he runs his eye, as he would down a stiff column of figures, over the many eligible young ladies whose acquaintance he owns in his native town; but none of them suits his prejudiced eye. One is too handsome, another too tall, another too fashionable, another too affected--all of them are everything that is not Addie Lefroy. Addie Lefroy, Addie Lefroy! Softly he repeats her name again and again, as if the words themselves tickle his palate and season his tea pleasantly, fragrantly. Addie Lefroy! How the name suits her! It has a sort of liquid, swinging sound. If ever she changes it, will she get another to suit her as well? For instance, Addie--Addie--Arm--

With a start he "pulls himself together," and swallows a big lump of cake that he loathes, which he hopes will act as a sort of break in the dangerous current of his imagination.

Meanwhile Miss Addie, quite unconscious of the agreeable turmoil that her presence is awaking in the breast of her massive middle-aged host, sips her tea and munches cake in blissful unconcern.

"I suppose," she muses, with a little ruefulness, "if the boys and Polly knew, they would think it awfully mean of me, feeding on the enemy like this; but--but--I really can not help it--I'm half famished. Perhaps, if they hadn't eaten anything from seven A.M. until five P.M. but half a moldy apple, they wouldn't be so particular. I don't know about Bob, though; I think his pride would stomach a longer fast than that. I don't believe any strait of body would induce him to eat a crumb under this roof now--and yet Mr. Armstrong hasn't behaved so badly. I might have been lying in the wood but for him. Oh, dear, how horrible! I've actually cleared the whole plate of toast alone! I--I hope he won't notice; I'll shove the dish behind the urn. Yes; he can't see it there. How did I do it? I never felt myself eating. That cake is delicious too--better than any of Sally's. I feel so much better now; I suppose it must have been hunger that helped me to go off in that ridiculous fashion in the grove."

Her head sinks back pleasantly on the soft cushions; she looks out on the sunny lawn and the timbered wealth she knows so well. Both the windows are wide open, and a faint evening breeze brings to her couch a breath of mignonette from a parterre outside, which her mother laid out with her own hands when she came to Nutsgrove, a happy bride, twenty-two years before. A thrush that has yearly built his nest in the heart of the gloire de Dijon, the shining leaves of which are fluttering against the casement, bursts into song. Addie closes her eyes, and she is at home once more, living over again the sweet spring evenings of her blissful neglected youth. Armstrong of Kelvick and his trim purified apartments vanish into space; the notched and rickety chairs are back again, the threadbare carpet with its sprays of dim ghostly terns, the dusky curtains. Her work-box is standing in its old place, she hears Pauline's light footsteps flying down the stairs, the boys are calling the dogs

"With wild halloo and brutal noise"

away to "marshy joys" in the grove, and old Sally is hunting the chickens out of the kitchen with a peculiar hooting noise that no throat but her own can produce.

"Miss Lefroy, you have not answered my question yet. You were very fond of Nutsgrove, were you not?"

She starts up, an angry crimson dyeing her face, to find her host leaning forward, his keen hazel eyes fixed intently on hers. She answers vehemently, passionately--

"No, I did not answer you, because I thought it was a senseless question; but I will answer you now, if you insist. Were we fond of Nutsgrove? We were--we were--we were! Will that satisfy you? What else had we to be fond of? We had no father, no mother, no friends, no outside amusements or pleasures, and we wanted nothing--nothing but to be left here together. We were content--oh, yes! Even--even when Polly and I began to grow up, we never longed to go away to London or Paris, to fashionable places, or balls and parties, like other girls; and the boys--they never asked to go to school or foreign parts, never wanted to see the world, like other boys. The woods, the river, the gardens, the dear old farm-yard, gave us all we wanted the whole year round--summer, winter, autumn, spring. Fond of Nutsgrove? Ah, we were! We loved every blade of grass, every mossy stone, every clump of earth; every flower and every leaf of the trees was dearer to us than they can be to you if you live here half a century. Now you are answered, Mr. Armstrong, and very rudely and impertinently too; but--but I could not help myself. I--I am very hot-tempered, and you should not have persisted when you saw--when you saw--"

"I know, I know," he interrupts earnestly; "but, believe me, Miss Lefroy, I did not persist out of idle curiosity or for the purpose of giving you wanton pain. Will you bear with me yet a little longer, and permit me to ask you another question, which--which may appear to you even more impertinent than the first? I have a purpose--an extenuating purpose in both. You are leaving this house very soon, are you not, to become a governess--a nursery-governess if I have heard aright--in a family of inferior position, and at a salary so mean as to exclude the idea of helping your family, who are--are almost completely unprovided for, thrown on the world without any visible means of support? Is my information correct?"

"Your information is perfectly correct, Mr. Armstrong," Addie retorts, springing to her feet, her eyes blazing; "but I fail to see your object in forcing me to discuss such--"

With a gesture he silences her, motioning her back to her seat almost impatiently.

"A moment more, if you please; then I shall have done. On your own admission, therefore, I may conclude that your future prospects, both personally and collectively, are not, to put it mildly, in a flourishing condition, and that at present you see no glimmer of improvement, no chance of reprieve from a life of servile drudgery, for which you feel yourself totally unfitted, first of all from a strong distaste to teaching, and secondly from the unconventional nature of your early life and education."

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