IT was not very long after this that one of “England’s little wars” broke out—not a little war in so far as loss and cost went, but yet one of those convulsions that go on far from us, that only when they are identified by some dreadful and tragic incident really rouse the nation. It is more usual now than it used to be to have the note of horror struck in this way, and Rivers was one of the most important instructors of the English public in such matters. He went up to the Elms in the morning, an unusual hour, to tell his friends there that he was ordered off at once, and to bid them good-bye. He made as little as possible of his own special mission, but there was no disguising the light of excitement, anxiety, and expectation that was in his eyes.
“If I were a soldier,” he said, “I should feel myself twice as interesting; and Sophy perhaps would give me her ribbon to wear in my cap; but a newspaper correspondent has his share of the kicks, and not much of the ha’pence, in the way of glory at least.”
“Oh, I think quite the reverse,” said Mrs. Lennox, always anxious to please and encourage; “because you know we should never know anything about it at home, but for you.”
“And the real ha’pence do fall to your share, and not to the soldiers,” said John.
“Well, perhaps it does pay better, which you will think an ignoble distinction,” he said, turning to Rosalind with a laugh. “But picking up news is not without danger any more than inflicting death is, and the trouble we take to forestall our neighbors is as hard as greater generalship.” He was very uneasy, looking anxiously from one to another. The impossibility of getting these people out of the way! What device would do it? he wondered. Mrs. Lennox sat in her chair by the fire with her crewel work as if she would never move; Sophy had a holiday and was pervading the room in all corners at once; and John Trevanion was writing at Rosalind’s table, with the composure of a man who had no intention of being disturbed. How often does this hopeless condition of affairs present itself when but one chance remains for the anxious lover! Had Rivers been a duke, the difficulty might easily have been got over, but he whose chief hope is not in the family, but in favor of the lady herself, has a more difficult task. Mrs. Lennox, he felt convinced, would have no desire to clear the way for him, and as for Mr. Trevanion, it was too probable that even had the suitor been a duke, on the eve of a long and dangerous expedition, he would have watched over Rosalind’s tranquillity and would not have allowed her to be disturbed. It was a hopeless sort of glance which the lover threw round him, ending in an unspoken appeal. They were very kind to him; had he wanted money or help of influence, or any support to push him on in the world, John Trevanion, a true friend to all whom he esteemed, would have given it. But Rosalind—they would not give him five minutes with Rosalind to save his life.
Mrs. Lennox, however, whose amiability always overcame her prudence, caught the petition in his eyes and interpreted it after her own fashion.
“Dear me,” she said, “how sorry we shall be to lose you! But you really must stay to lunch. The last time! You could not do less for us than that. And we shall drink your health and wish you a happy return.”
“That will do him so much good; when he must have a hundred things to do.”
“The kindness will do me good. Yes, I have a hundred things to do, but since Mrs. Lennox is so kind; it will do me more good than anything,” Rivers said. His eyes were glistening as if there was moisture in them; and Rosalind, looking up and perceiving the restlessness of anxiety in his face, was affected by a sympathetic excitement. She began to realize what the position was—that he was going away, and might never see her again. She would be sorry too. It would be a loss of importance, a sort of coming down in the world, to have no longer this man—not a boy, like Roland; a man whose opinions people looked up to, who was one of the instructors and oracles of the world—depending upon her favor. There was perhaps more than this, a slightly responsive sentiment on her own part, not like his, but yet something—an interest, a liking. Her heart began to beat; there was a sort of anguish in his eyes which moved her more, she thought, than she had ever been moved before—a force of appeal to her which she could scarcely resist. But what could she do? She could not, any more than he could, clear the room of the principal persons in it, and give him the chance of speaking to her. Would she do it if she could?—she thought she would not. But yet she was agitated slightly, sympathetically, and gave him an answering look in which, in the excitement of the moment, he read a great deal more than there was to read. Was this to be all that was to pass between them before he went away? How commonplace the observations of the others seemed to them both! especially to Rivers, whose impatience was scarcely to be concealed, and who looked at the calm, every-day proceedings of the heads of the house with a sense that they were intolerable, yet a consciousness that the least sign of impatience would be fatal to him.
“Are you frightened, then, Mr. Rivers, that you look so strange?” said Sophy, planting herself in front of him, and looking curiously into his face.
“Sophy, how can you be so rude?” Mrs. Lennox said.
“I don’t think I am frightened—not yet,” he said, with a laugh. “It is time enough when the fighting begins.”
“Are you very frightened then? It is not rudeness; I want to know. It must be very funny to go into battle. I should not have time to be frightened, I should want to know how people feel—and I never knew any one who was just going before. Did you ever want to run away?”
“You know,” said Rivers, “I don’t fight, except with another newspaper fellow, who shall get the news first.”
“I am sure Mr. Rivers is frightened, for he has got tears in his eyes,” said the enfant terrible. “Well, if they are not tears, it is something that makes your eyes very shiny. You have always rather shiny eyes. And you have never got a chair all this time, Mr. Rivers. Please sit down; for to move about like that worries Aunt Sophy. You are as bad as Rex when he comes home for the holidays. Aunt Sophy is always saying she will not put up with it.”
“Child!” cried Mrs. Lennox, with dismay, “what I say to you is not meant for Mr. Rivers. Of course Mr. Rivers is a little excited. I am sure I shall look for the newspapers, and read all the descriptions with twice as much interest. Rosalind, I wish you would go and get some flowers. We have none for the table. You were so busy this morning, you did not pay any attention. Those we have here will do very well for to-day, but for the table we want something fresh. Get some of those fine cactuses. They are just the thing to put on the table for any one who is going to the wars.”
“Yes, Aunt Sophy,” said Rosalind, faintly. She saw what was coming, and it frightened, yet excited her. “There is plenty of time. It will do in—half an hour.”
“My dear,” said Mrs. Lennox, with an absurd insistence, as if she meant something, “you had better go at once.”
“I am nervous, as Sophy has discovered, and can’t keep still,” said Rivers. “May I go too?”
Rosalind looked at him, on her side, with a kind of tremulous appeal, as he took her basket out of her hand. It seemed to say “Don’t!” with a distinct sense that it was vain to say so. Aunt Sophy, with that foolish desire to please which went against all her convictions and baffled her own purpose, looked up at them as they stood, Rosalind hesitating and he so eager. “Yes, do; it will cheer you up a little,” the foolish guardian said.
And John Trevanion wrote on calmly, thinking nothing. They abandoned her to her fate. It was such a chance as Rivers could not have hoped for. He could scarcely contain himself as he followed her out of the room. She went very slowly, hoping perhaps even now to be called back, though she scarcely wished to be called back, and would have been disappointed too, perhaps. She could not tell what her feelings were, nor what she was going to do. Yet there came before her eyes as she went out a sudden vision of the other, the stranger, he whom she did not know, who had wooed her in the silence, in her dreams, and penetrated her eyes with eyes not bright and keen, like those of Rivers, but pathetic, like little Johnny’s. Was she going to forsake the visionary for the actual? Rosalind felt that she too was going into battle, not knowing what might come of it; into her first personal encounter with life and a crisis in which she must act for herself.
“I did not hope for anything like this,” he said, hurriedly; “a good angel must have got it for me. I thought I should have to go without a word.”
“Oh, no! there will be many more words; you have promised Aunt Sophy to stay to lunch.”
“To see you in the midst of the family is almost worse than not seeing you at all. Miss Trevanion, you must know. Perhaps I am doing wrong to take advantage of their confidence, but how can I help it? Everything in the world is summed up to me in this moment. Say something to me! To talk of love in common words seems nothing. I know no words that mean half what I mean. Say you will think of me sometimes when I am away.”
Rosalind trembled very much in spite of all she could do to steady herself. They had gone through the hall without speaking, and it was only when they had gained the shelter of the conservatory, in which they were safe from interruption, that he thus burst forth. The interval had been so breathless and exciting that every emotion was intensified. She did not venture to look up at him, feeling as if something might take flame at his eyes.
“Mr. Rivers, I could say that very easily, but perhaps it would not mean what you think.”
“Yes,” he said, “I see how it is; the words are too small for me, and you would mean just what they say. I want them to mean a great deal more, everything, as mine do. At my age,” he said, with an agitated smile—“for I am too old for you, besides being not good enough in any way—at my age I ought to have the sense to speak calmly, to offer you as much as I can, which is no great things; but I have got out of my own control, Rosalind. Well, yes, let me say that—a man’s love is worth that much, to call the girl whom he loves Rosalind—Rosalind. I could go on saying it, and die so, like Perdita’s prince. All exaggerated nonsense and folly, I know, I know, and yet all true.”
She raised her head for a moment and gave him a look in which there was a sort of tender gratitude yet half-reproach, as if entreating him to spare her that outburst of passion, to meet which she was so entirely prepared.
“I understand,” he said; “I can see into your sweet mind as if it were open before me, I am so much older than you are. But the love ought to be most on the man’s side. I will take whatever you will give me—a little, a mere alms!—if I cannot get any more. If you say only that, that you will think of me sometimes when I am away, and mean only that, and let me come back, if I come back, and see—what perhaps Providence may have done for me in the meantime—”
“Mr. Rivers, I will think of you often. Is it possible I could do otherwise after what you say? But when you come back, if you find that I do not—care for you more than now—”
“Do you care for me at all now, Rosalind?”
“In one way, but not as you want me. I must tell you the truth. I am always glad when you come, I shall be very glad when you come back, but I could not—I could not—”
“You could not—marry me, Rosalind?”
She drew back a little from his side. She said “No” in a quick, startled tone; then she added “Nor any one,” half under her breath.
“Nor any one,” he repeated; “that is enough. And you will think of me when I am away, and if I come back, I may come and ask? All this I will accept on my knees, and, at present, ask for no more.”
“But you must not expect—you must not make sure of—when you come back—”
“I will wait upon Providence and my good angel, Rosalind!”
“What are you saying, Mr. Rivers, about angels and Rosalind? Do you call her by her name, and do you think she is an angel? That is how people talk in novels; I have read a great many. Why, you have got no flowers! What have you been doing all this time? I made Aunt Sophy send me to help you with the cactuses, and Uncle John said, ‘Well, perhaps it will be better.’ But, oh, what idle things you are! The cactuses are not here even. You look as if you had forgotten all about them, Rose.”
“We knew you were sure to come, and waited for you,” said Rivers; “that is to say, I did. I knew you were sure to follow. Here, Sophy, you and I will go for the cactuses, and Miss Trevanion will sit down and wait for us. Don’t you think that is the best way?”
“You call her Miss Trevanion now, but you called her Rosalind when I was not here. Oh, and I know you don’t care a bit for the flowers: you wanted only to talk to her when Uncle John and Aunt Sophy were out of the way.”
“Don’t you think that was natural, Sophy? You are a wise little girl. You are very fond of Uncle John and Aunt Sophy, but still now and then you like to get away for a time, and tell your secrets.”
“Were you telling your secrets to Rosalind? I am not very fond of them. I like to see what is going on, and to find people out.”
“Shall I give you something to find out for me while I am away?”
“Oh, yes, yes, do; that is what I should like,” cried Sophy, with her little mischievous eyes dancing. “And I will write and tell you. But then you must give me your address; I shall be the only one in the house that knows your address; and I’ll tell you what they are all doing, every one of them. There is nothing I should like so much,” Sophy cried. She was so pleased with this idea that she forgot to ask what the special information required by her future correspondent was.
Meanwhile Rosalind sat among the flowers, hearing the distant sound of their voices, with her heart beating and all the color and brightness round flickering unsteadily in her eyes. She did not know what she had done, or if she had done anything; if she had pledged herself, or if she were still free.